It seems each week leading up to the big gift-giving season is dedicated to one big-name author. This week, it’s Lee Child for Night School, picked by both LibraryReads and Indie Next (see below under “Peer Picks”). As a testament to his status, Janet Maslin steps out of semi-retirement to assess it in the context of the 20 titles that have come before it for the daily New York Times. This new title shakes things up by reaching back in time to when Reacher was a mere lad of 30. Good thing, says Maslin, because his previous title, Make Me, “wandered so far down into the dark web that an about-face was clearly needed.” Maslin appreciates this return to an old-fashioned spy story.

This Was a Man, Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan/St. Martins; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). Archer finishes out his popular Clifton Chronicles with this, the 7th volume in the series, which brings the family into the Thatcher era.

Well-known YA author Stephenie Meyer publishes an adult spy novel, The Chemist (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; Hachette Audio). Announcing it in a press release this summer, she said it “is the love child created from the union of my romantic sensibilities and my obsession with Jason Bourne/Aaron Cross. I very much enjoyed spending time with a different kind of action hero, one whose primary weapon isn’t a gun or a knife or bulging muscles, but rather her brain.”

Another Meyer, Marissa, writes her first stand-alone YA novel since her very popular Lunar Chronicles series, Heartless (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), a prequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, about the Queen of Hearts. She talks about the catalysts for the  book in a recent interview. It has a moody trailer:

The titles highlighted here, along with many other notable titles arriving this week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Nov. 7, 2016.

Award Contender

The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, David Sax (PublicAffairs; OverDrive Sample).

On the Carnegie Medal Longlist, this book explores the current vogue for older technologies (it’s not nostalgia, it’s passion). It’s not surprising that this speaks to librarians who have been forced to live with multiple technologies as they fade in and out of fashion. Booklist, which is one of the sources of titles for the Carnegie list, starred it, saying “Here is a compulsively readable book after a Luddite’s heart.”

Peer Picks

Two LibraryRead selections hit shelves this week.

Orphans of the Carnival, Carol Birch (PRH/Doubleday; OverDrive Sample).

“Julia is an accomplished young woman who can sing, dance, ride horseback and speak three languages. Unfortunately for her, most people can’t get past what they see because Julia’s face is covered with thick hair, giving her an apelike appearance. Orphaned as a small child but raised in a wealthy household, Julia decides to travel the world as a carnival performer. This beautifully written work of historical fiction allows readers to consider what it means to be “other,” to always be on the outside looking in.” — Vicki Nesting, St. Charles Parish Library, Destrehan, LA

Additional Buzz: It is also a November Indie Next selection. Nancy Pearl highlights it in a recent KUOW book talk, saying it is “magnificent but not an easy read” due to the topic. PopSugar list it as one of “21 Fiction Reads to Check Out This Fall” writing, it “will leave a mark on your heart.” The Guardian is not as receptive, saying “although Birch writes beautifully and creates some wonderful moments, the narrative never quite takes off.”

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel, Lee Child (PRH/Delacorte Press; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Child goes back to the well and gives readers another glimpse into Jack Reacher’s past as a military cop — and what a worthwhile trip it is. It’s 1996 — after Reacher receives a Legion of Merit medal, he’s sent to “Night School” with two other men, one from the FBI and another from the CIA. Soon the trio learns that they’ve been selected for a covert mission. Child layers his page-turning story with careful and sometimes dryly humorous details. This suspense series keeps getting better — it’s a joy to read.” — Elizabeth Eastin, Rogers Memorial Library, Southampton, NY

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for November and a Fall Reading choice by the Amazon Editor’s, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Charles Finch includes it in his round up of “Six New Thrillers for Fall” in the NYT, calling the series “a little silly, and completely addictive” and praising Child for his “clean, hard and fast” writing. Unfortunately, Finch feels that this 21st outing “stumbles” about a third of the way in.

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

This week’s big book is a kids title, the next in the series that spawned so many others, Jeff Kinney’s Double Down: Diary of a Wimpy Kid #11 (Abrams/Amulet Books; Recorded Books).

On the adult side, there’s a new Harry Bosch title by Michael Connelly, The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) as well as one by Danielle Steel, The Award (PRH/Delacorte Press; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The unlikely success of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove brought a deal to publish more, 3 new novels plus a novella. Arriving this week is the first, the novella And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer (S&S/Atria; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). The publisher’s description indicates it treads familiar ground, about an “elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.”

A new month, a new set of James Patterson’s BookShots, including Taking the Titanic (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), which replaces the belatedly announced and quickly dropped title, The Murder of Stephen King. Patterson is the lead author on Killer Chef (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), about the poisoning of diners in New Orleans.

The other two offerings are in the less-successful BookShots Flames series, Dazzling: The Diamond Trilogy, Part I, Elizabeth Hayley, James Patterson (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) and Bodyguard, Jessica Linden, James Patterson (Hachette/BookShots; OverDrive Sample).

Arriving just after an Italian journalist claimed to have uncovered her true identity is Elena Ferrante’s own Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (PRH/Europa; Blackstone Audio). Alexander Chee writes in New Republic, that “Ferrante records her 24-year fight against the manipulation of her authorial identity.”

Also arriving is a second work by Ferrante, this one, amazingly, for kids, The Beach at Night (PRH/Europa). The Washington Post calls it “The latest Elena Ferrante controversy” because, as reviewer Nora Krug puts it, “Though compelling and vivid, the book is also deeply chilling, and its vaguely sexual undertones are troubling.”

The titles highlighted here, along with many other notable titles arriving this week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, Early Word New Title Radar, Week of Oct. 31, 2016.

Awards

The Sun Is Also a Star, Nicola Yoon (PRH/Delacorte Press; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample) arrives this week. It is one of five finalists in the Young People’s Lit category for the National Book Awards (winner to be announced in two weeks, on Nov. 16).

The Lyrics: 1961-2012, Bob Dylan (S&S). Dylan finally acknowledged being awarded the Nobel in Literature recently and in an interview with the Telegraph says he will attend the actual ceremony on December 10 “if at all possible.”

 Media Attention

Between Two Worlds: Lessons from the Other Side, Tyler Henry (S&S/Gallery Books; OverDrive Sample). A memoir by the star of E!’s reality series Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry. Expect a small media wave with appearances on Nightline and E! News Daily.

Peer Picks

Two peer picks publish this week, including the #1 LibraryReads and #1 Indie Next selection for November, Faithful by Alice Hoffman (S&S; S&S Audio).

“With only a touch of her usual magical realism, Hoffman crafts a tale that still manages to enchant. In Faithful, a young girl who survives a car accident that almost kills her best friend spends the next decade doing penance to try and alleviate her guilt. Despite her best efforts to avoid it, love, hope, and forgiveness patiently shadow her as she slowly heals. Shelby is a complex character and through her internal growth Hoffman reveals that she is a person worthy of love, a bit of sorcery that readers will hold dear. Simply irresistible.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, Huntington Station, NY

Additional Buzz: It also impressed Canadian librarians, featuring on their Loan Stars list.

Cabo de Gata, Eugen Ruge (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample) publishes this week as well and is among the November selections on the Indie Next list.

“Bored, anchorless, and alone, a man leaves Berlin for a tiny Andalusian fishing village where he plans to write a novel. Instead, he encounters a cranky hotelier, green tomatoes, an Englishman who acts like an American, an American who acts like an Englishman, a very quiet bartender, a mysterious cat, and, possibly, the meaning of everything — or lack thereof. This slim, playful novel will speak to anyone who has ever questioned the path they were on — or whether there is a path at all.” —Sam Kaas, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA

Tie-ins

Lion (Movie Tie-In), Saroo Brierley (PRH/NAL; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) comes out this week as a tie in to the upcoming Nov 25th movie of the same name.

As we have previously written, it is a memoir of an amazing journey of loss and recovery originally titled A Long Way Home, (PRH/Viking, 2014, trade paperback, 2015).

In the book, Brierley recounts how he was separated from his family in rural India at age 4, when he climbed aboard a train and was carried over a thousand miles away to a city he did not know. He wound up in an orphanage, was adopted and relocated to Tasmania.

The film stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, and David Wenham. They join a cast of actors well-known in India, including Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Priyanka Bose, and Tannishtha Chatterjee. The inspirational tear-jerker is directed by Garth Davis (Top of the Lake).

It debuts in the Friday after Thanksgiving time slot which is not just prime time to attract families looking for entertainment, but also good timing for awards. Vanity Fair reports the film is “Already on Awards-Season Short Lists.”

Fans of the hit TV show Mr. Robot can read Elliot Alderson’s personal journal with MR. ROBOT: Red Wheelbarrow: (eps1.91_redwheelbarr0w.txt), Sam Esmail and Courtney Looney (Abrams).

According to ars TECHNICA “Red Wheelbarrow is essentially Elliot’s marble notebook from when he was in prison, and he’s transparent this time (no more lies). The notebook is what Elliot asked Hot Carla to burn, but… she didn’t.”

As reported by Tor.com, the creators say the book is “its own story, and you’re only ever going to hear this story with this book.”

The title, as many may suspect, is indeed a reference to the poem by William Carlos Williams.

The film Nocturnal Animals opens in limited release on Nov. 18 and in wide distribution on Dec. 9.

It is a psychological thriller written and directed by fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford (A Single Man), based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright.

The ensemble cast features Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, and Michael Sheen.

It is getting praise in early viewings. Variety says that Ford has created “another winner, an ambitious high-wire noir thriller.”

The Hollywood Reporter writes “David Lynch meets Alfred Hitchcock meets Douglas Sirk in Nocturnal Animals, a sumptuously entertaining noir melodrama laced with vicious crime and psychological suspense, which more than delivers on the promise of A Single Man.”

A tie-in edition, with the original title, comes out this week: Tony and Susan, Austin Wright (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; OverDrive Sample).

The last tie-in of the week is for a work not yet in post-production, the start of a crime trilogy that will form the basis of an upcoming TV series.

Entertainment Weekly says it features “Ravi Chandra Singh, a London private investigator who handles “cases so high-profile that they never make the headlines” with his bevy of happily corrupt colleagues, like a hacker from Hong Konk, a Nigerian lawyer, and a brilliant stoner. When Ravi starts to see visions of Hindu gods as he becomes overwhelmed by his complex cases, he has to figure out if he’s completely delusional — or if he might actually be a modern day shaman.”

Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) is signed to star in the still-in-development adaptation, EW reports.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The latest John Grisham thriller, The Whistler (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT), arrives this week. As a result, it’s a week avoided by most other big name authors. Even James Patterson has only one title arriving and it’s for kids, Middle School: Dog’s Best Friend (Hachette/jimmy patterson; Blackstone; OverDrive Sample), which hits shelves while the film adaptation of the first book is still in theaters. Grisham will appear on the upcoming CBS Sunday Morning and, on the day of publication, on CBS This Morning.

Grisham hasn’t scared off Iris Johansen, publishing the fourth in her Kendra Michaels series, Night Watch (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; OverDrive Sample), or the queen of Christian fiction, Karen Kingsbury, releasing another Christmas novel, A Baxter Family Christmas (S&S/Howard Books; S&S; OverDrive Sample).

In picture books, Nanette’s Baguette by the Caldecott-honor recipient Mo Willems (Hachette/Disney-Hyperion), is set in a French village, where a young frog is entrusted with buying bread for her mother for the first time. Expect a host of rhymes on the title, of course.

In kids graphic novels, Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl) takes on an iconic superhero in Iron Man: The Gauntlet (Hachette/Marvel Press; OverDrive Sample), part of Marvel’s series that enlists well-known children’s authors to create books based on their characters. Kirkus says Colfer “successfully captures the vulnerability and infuriatingly seductive arrogance of Stark, who polices the world to atone for his father’s sins. Ideal for readers who are breathlessly awaiting the next film in the Marvel superhero franchise.”

These titles, and those highlighted below, along with other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Oct. 24.

Media Attention

Wild And Precious Life, Deborah Ziegler (S&S/Atria/Emily Bestler Books; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

When Brittany Maynard, who was suffering from terminal brain cancer, wrote an op/ed piece in 2014 titled “My right to death with dignity at 29,” the story was heavily covered by the news media. It was just announced that her husband is working with a film company on a movie about her life. Her mother is publishing a book next week, and was interviewed by Katie Couric on Yahoo News. The author is also scheduled to appear on CBS Inside Edition on Oct. 31.

Not Dead Yet, Phil Collins (PRH/Crown/Archetype; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The musician will be profiled on the upcoming CBS Sunday Morning. He is also set for appearances next week on The View, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and The Daily Show w/ Trevor Noah as well as on NPR’s All Things Considered (date not yet set).

A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life, Pat Conroy (PRH/ Nan A. Talese; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

A collection of pieces by the author who died earlier this year, it is a Parade Pick, with an online excerpt. 

Fall Cookbooks 

It’s the big cookbook season and several titles featured in the “Best of the Rest” addendum to the NYT‘s The Best Cookbooks of Fall 2016 arrive. Ina Garten will receive media attention for Cooking for Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (RH/Clarkson Potter; OverDrive Sample) including appearances on the Today Show and even Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Anthony Bourdain releases his first cookbook in over ten years, Appetites (HC/Ecco) and Dorie Greenspan turns her attention to a deceptively simple delicacy in Dorie’s Cookies (HMH/Rux Martin; OverDrive Sample).

French Country Cooking: Meals and Moments from a Village in the Vineyards, Mimi Thorisson (PRH/Clarkson Potter; OverDrive Sample).

Popular food blogger Mimi Thorisson lived out many people’s fantasies by restoring a large house in the French countryside and creating a life that allows Thorisson and her husband to pursue their passions, hers for cooking, his for photography and their shared passion for restoring old houses. This book, which follows last year’s A Kitchen in France, is as much a travel book as a cookbook, will be featured in the NYT Travel section. She has already been profiled in the Wall Street Journal [subscription maybe required].

Peer Picks

After last week’s many titles, comes a quieter period with only four peer picks forthcoming, all of them Indie Next selections for November.

The Terranauts, T.C. Boyle (HC/Ecco; Harper Audio).

“In the early 1990s, a grand experiment began in the Arizona desert to determine if human life could be sustained in an engineered, sealed ecological system. The mission failed spectacularly, but fiction gives it another chance in this riveting story of eight scientists who commit to live under glass for two years. They battle hunger, fatigue, and isolation, but the real drama is personal. The story is told through the voices of three distinct narrators — two heating things up on the inside and one nursing resentments outside the glass walls. Master storyteller Boyle entertains, but never slips into schlock. He writes with wit and perspicacity on both human relations and ecology, and this novel is among his best.” —Sharon Flesher, Brilliant Books, Traverse City, MI

Additional Buzz: It is a Fall Reading choice from the Amazon Editors, io9, New York Magazine, and WSJ. The Washington Post compares the novel to the actual Biosphere 2 experiment and BuzzFeed includes it among the “24 Brilliant Books You Must Read This Autumn.” Boyle stops by The New Yorker Radio Hour to “pick three” things he is interested in right now – a musician, a YouTube series, and the book Winter World by Bernd Heinrich.

You Will Not Have My Hate, Antoine Leiris (PRH/Penguin; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This slender tome began as a social media viral sensation. Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, a husband and father wrote an open letter to the perpetrators of those attacks, stating time and again that they would not have his hate, despite the fact that he lost his wife and the mother of their infant son. This memoir closely follows the hours after the attack, chronicling Leiris’ thoughts and emotions for the next several days up through the funeral for his wife. Though brief, this is a powerful meditation on grief and resilience and the importance of building a legacy of forgiveness for his son.” —Emily Crowe, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA

Additional Buzz: Elle picked it as a Fall Reading choice, calling it a “bracing, courageous, and utterly beautiful book.” The Guardian calls it a book of “exceptional grace.” Vogue offers an excerpt.

The Education of Dixie Dupree, Donna Everhart (PRH/Kensington; Tantor; OverDrive Sample).

“This debut novel is a page-turner from the very beginning. In a story of a family filled with pain, deceit, lies, and dark secrets across generations, Everhart allows readers to feel everything her young narrator, Dixie, must endure. For me, the mark of a good book is that I find myself thinking about it after I have finished reading, and The Education of Dixie Dupree will be with me for a long while.” —Mary O’Malley, Anderson’s Bookshop, Naperville, IL

Additional Buzz: Bustle counts it as one of their “21 Novels By Women To Add To Your TBR Pile This Fall.”

Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live, Peter Orner (Catapult).

“From beloved novelist and short-story writer Peter Orner comes a collection of essays on the reading life. Orner considers Chekhov in a hospital cafeteria, Welty on a remote island. He also throws Julian Barnes out the window of a moving car — after all, who would trust a man who only talked about what he loved? Behind and around and between these meditations flit the ghosts of the author’s life: his late father, his lost marriage, his self-deprecating take on his own career. The result is a book overflowing with charm — wry, delectable, and laugh-out-loud funny. Orner is a writer’s writer, but he is also a reader’s reader. Am I Alone Here? is an absolute treasure.” —Mairead Staid, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI

Tie-ins

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger, Stephen King (S&S/Pocket Books; OverDrive Sample), a tie-in edition for the upcoming film, hits shelves this week.

Nikolaj Arcel directs the adaptation of Stephen King’s epic dark fantasy series, which stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.

The film opens on February 17, 2017. As of yet, there is no preview or official film poster. There is, however, a great deal of buzz. See our additional coverage here, here, and here.

A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life, James Bowen (Macmillan/A Thomas Dunne Book for St. Martin’s Griffin; OverDrive Sample) is the tie-in edition for the film adaptation of the same name.

The story follows a homeless man who adopts a street cat. In turn, the cat helps him turn his life around. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Bob the cat along with Luke Treadaway, Ruta Gedmintas, Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey), and Anthony Head, it opens Nov. 11, 2016.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The holds leader among the titles that arrive in the upcoming week is the next in John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers series, Escape Clause, (PRH/Putnam; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Close behind in holds is Jojo Moyes’s Paris for One and Other Stories (PRH/Pamela Dorman; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). It is a People pick for the week: “Moyes in in fine, cheeky form in this collection of short fiction, deploying the wit and charm that animates Me Before You and her other popular novels.”

James Patterson comes up with a new twist on his BookShots series of short original paperbacks next week, collecting four of the titles into a hardcover edition, Kill or Be Killed: Thrillers (Hachette/BookShots Series; OverDrive Sample) also available in large print, the first time any BookShots titles have been available in that format.

More Christmas novels also arrive, with two authors trying their hand at them for the first time: David Rosenfelt’s The Twelve Dogs of Christmas: An Andy Carpenter Mystery (Macmillan/Minotaur; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample) and Beth Harbison’s A Shoe Addict’s Christmas (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Jay Asher’s second YA novel, after the very popular Thirteen Reasons Why, is also a Christmas novel, What Light (Penguin Young Readers/Razorbill; Penguin Audio/Listening Library; OverDrive Sample), about a girl whose family owns a Christmas tree farm. Booklist calls it a “surprising change of direction … a frothy, peppermint-in-hot-cocoa romance … Certain to please readers seeking an escapist, feel-good holiday read.” The Netflix adaptation of Thirteen Reasons Why is currently in production. Asher recently spoke to the students in the California high school where filming recently wrapped.

These titles, and those highlighted below, along with other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, Earlyword New Title Radar Week of Oct 17.

Media Attention

The Magnolia Story, Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines (Thomas Nelson; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The hosts of the hit HGTV show Fixer Upper hit the cover of People magazine for their first book. The show returns for its fourth season on Tuesday, November 29th. Another HGTV star, Nicole Curtis, host of Rehab Addict, is also releasing a book this week, Better Than New: Lessons I’ve Learned from Saving Old Homes (and How They Saved Me) (PRH/Artisan; OverDrive Sample).

Homeward Bound: The Life Of Paul Simon (Macmillan/Holt; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The fall season has brought many new books by and about musicians, including Bruce Springsteen and the Beach Boys. People‘s “Book of the Week” is about another artist from the same era, Paul Simon. They write, “This touching biography details the singer’s Queens youth, his beginnings with Art Garfunkel and the road to stardom. … Pure pleasure.”

Best Cookbooks 

Two titles from the NYT‘s selection of The Best Cookbooks of Fall 2016, arrive this week:

Food52 A New Way to Dinner: A Playbook of Recipes and Strategies for the Week Ahead, Amanda Hesser, Merrill Stubbs (PRH/Ten Speed; OverDrive Sample). It was also reviewed separately in the NYT with the headline “Practical Magic for the Modern Cook.”

The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem, Marcus Samuelson (HMH/Rux Martin; OverDrive Sample). Also reviewed separately in the NYT.

Award Contender

His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae, Graeme MaCrae Burnet (Skyhorse Publishing; OverDrive Sample).

The last of the Man Booker finalists to be published in the US, this title was originally published by the tiny 2-person Scottish house Saraband (see our earlier coverage). The novel earned praise from The Guardian, which said “The book’s pretense at veracity, as well as being a literary jeux d’esprit, brings an extraordinary historical period into focus.”

Peer Picks

It is another very busy publishing week with twelve new peer picks hitting shelves, including two Library Reads selections from the October list:

Smoke and Mirrors, Elly Griffiths (HMH; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Thrilled for another opportunity to enjoy DI Stephens and Max Mephisto joining forces against crime and intrigue. It may appear light hearted with its theatrical/magician twist, but these detective stories are full of dark happenings. Solving the gruesome murder of two local children dampens the holiday spirit in this small town. The lead characters are very enjoyable and the theater setting so unique. I enjoyed the love interest/overprotected daughter story line as well! Very much looking forward to the next installment.” — Carol Ward, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Solon, OH

The Other Einstein, Marie Benedict (Sourcebooks Landmark; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Einstein. Just hearing that name likely brings a smile to your face, as you picture the mischievous wild-haired scientist with the twinkle in his eye. In The Other Einstein, readers get a view of the woman behind the genius, his first wife Mileva Maric, a strong willed and brilliant physics student who refused to let society dictate her life’s path, but who lost her way when love came on the scene. Benedict has penned an engaging tale that will likely inspire readers to investigate the true story behind Maric’s genius and her personal and professional relationship with Einstein.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, Huntington Station, NY

Additional Buzz: It is also an Indie Next pick for October and Canadian librarians made it a LoanStar October pick. It tops Bustle‘s list of “12 New Novels Every History Buff Needs To Read” and Popsugar included it among their “25 Books You’re Going to Want to Curl Up With This Fall.”

Selections from book sellers span their October and November Indie Next lists. One more from October is Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South, Beth Macy (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“In the early 20th century, Albino African American brothers are kidnapped by unscrupulous and racist circus managers who not only steal their earnings from their work as freak show performers, but also tell their mother that they are dead. This occurs during the height of the Jim Crow South, when black lives didn’t matter and lynching was at its peak. The mother’s persistent and heroic fight through legal channels to recoup her sons’ wages and achieve a better standard of living is at the heart of this true story, an inside look at the historical depths of American racism.” —Joan Grenier, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA

Additional Buzz: It is a Kirkus Prize Finalist and a Carnegie Medal Longlist selection. Entertainment Weekly picked it as one of their fall reading choices. The author will be part of C-SPAN’s coverage of the 28th annual Southern Festival of Books in Nashville this weekend.

The remaining selections are from the Indie Next November list:

Inheriting Edith, Zoe Fishman (HC/William Morrow Paperbacks; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“It’s a familiar cast of characters: a single mom raising a spunky kid; an older woman descending into Alzheimer’s; the inhabitants of a small town; a nice eligible man. And then comes the twist: the single mom and the older woman aren’t related by blood, but connected through the older woman’s now deceased daughter. With humor and heart, long-held secrets come to light and special bonds are formed. Inheriting Edith is both entertaining and poignant.” —Jenny Stroyeck, The Homer Bookstore, Homer, AK

Mister Monkey, Francine Prose (HC/Harper; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“I came to this book expecting to be entertained, and it is laugh-out-loud funny. But in the wise and observant ways of Prose, Mister Monkey is more than just a protracted joke. The story begins in the narrow spaces of a theater so to be demolished for condos and widens as Prose shifts points of view from actor to costume designer to writer to waiter to Hindu deity and back to the stage. Adolescent rage, loneliness, divinity, the end of the world, the beginning of love, the way we fail to live up to our dreams for ourselves, the fear of our own mediocrity, the unexpected victories that are the grace that fills the spaces made by disappointment: these are the soul of this novel with an agile, monkey heart. Both deeply moving and light, this is one of my favorite novels of the year.” —Melanie McNair, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, Asheville, NC

Additional Buzz: It is a Carnegie Medal Longlist selection and made the Fall Reading list of the New York Magazine and WSJ. Bustle picked it as one of the “12 Best New Fiction Out In October To Read On A Cozy Fall Day.”

IQ, Joe Ide (Hachette/Mulholland Books; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“IQ is the nickname of Isaiah Quintabe, who, despite being a high-school dropout, is absolutely brilliant and has amazing deductive skills. Living on the rough side of Long Beach, California, he is an underground detective who takes on cases in the city’s ghettoes that the LAPD refuses to handle. Beginning with a kidnapping and moving to a case involving the assassination attempt on a famous rapper, IQ represents a positive influence in this tough environment of gang warfare, drugs, murders, and prostitution. A mixture of Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, the craziness of Don Winslow’s Savages, and the classic mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, this debut will spark interest and open up this particular world to new readers.” —Gerard Villegas, Warwick’s, La Jolla, CA

Additional Buzz: Deadline Hollywood reports that the rights sold in a seven-way bidding war for developed into a drama series. The Washington Post review calls it “One of the most original thrillers of the year.” It is one of Literary Hub‘s “18 Books You Should Read This October,” The Hollywood Reporter picks it as one of “20 Must-Reads” of the season, and Entertainment Weekly counts it among the “8 mysteries and thrillers to chill you this fall.”

A Gambler’s Anatomy, Jonathan Lethem (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“The Gambler vs. the House. Alexander Bruno’s journey as a psychically abled, top-notch backgammon player illuminates themes of reward and loss, purpose and fulfillment in this engaging, thought-provoking yarn. Lethem’s prose is on point, and his allusions and references resonate strongly. His description of this world — fast, oddly comical, sardonic, and, at most times, without sense or reason — is poignant and heavy-hitting, full of breath without being overly winded. Another winner from Lethem, who has established himself firmly amongst the top dogs of intelligent contemporary literary fiction.” —Blake Smith, The Oxford Exchange, Tampa, FL

Additional Buzz: It’s reviewed by Kurt Anderson on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Book Review, as well as a daily review by Dwight Garner (as part of the new direction, with both the daily and Sunday review reporting to Pamela Paul, this is not an accident, but indicates that the book was considered important enough for double coverage). Anderson notes this is Lethem’s  tenth novel, making him “among the most prolific of the name-brand literary novelists of his generation,” and that “Lethem has said that after ending his youthful sci-fi phase and becoming a certified big deal, he felt pressure to  ‘stay major!’ . . . to only write books as long, sorrowful and wide-screen as The Fortress of Solitude, but that he chose instead to write ‘other kinds of books.’ A Gambler’s Anatomy is the best so far of those other kinds of books.”

Garner, however, goes ahead and compares this new book  to the author’s earlier efforts to write The Great American novel, and finds that, in comparison, that this is a “fluky novel, not among Mr. Lethem’s very best. Its themes are underdeveloped, and it moves in zigs and zags, like a squirrel in headlights,” amusingly saying “it plays at its best like a Twilight Zone episode filmed by the Coen brothers.”

The Washington Post‘s Ron Charles gives a rundown of the story (his print review is here).

Nobody’s Son: A Memoir, Mark Slouka (W. W. Norton & Company; OverDrive Sample).

‘This is a grueling, soul-searching study of memory and personal pain written in the most soaring prose. To some extent, most of us think we came from dysfunctional families, but this memoir is going to become the calibration standard for dysfunction. How Slouka survived his parents and their scarred Czech pasts, their humiliating years as refugees, and their years of unhappy marriage in America is a small miracle. What’s left are some large emotional holes that Slouka attempts to patch up in front of the reader. An absolutely mesmerizing read.” —Darwin Ellis, Books on the Common, Ridgefield, CT

The Fall Guy, James Lasdun (Norton; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“The Fall Guy, which starts innocently enough, introduces its three main characters as they leave the hustle and bustle of New York City for a calm summer sojourn upstate. Things take a Lynchian turn when Charlie and Chloe’s guest, Charlie’s cousin Matthew, notices what appears to be duplicitous behavior within and outside their home. Lasdun does an incredible job of slowly ratcheting up the suspense, earning the reader’s trust with his spare, pitch-perfect language, and upending expectations on every page. Morally complex characters, a sly and inventive take on the guilt and shame of modern-day banking, and prose as sensuous as some of the novel’s sexiest scenes are just a few of the many rewards of Lasdun’s latest, and greatest, novel.” —John Francisconi, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Additional Buzz: It is on the Fall Reading list made by Entertainment Weekly.

The Next: A Novel Of Love, Revenge and a Ghost Who Can’t Let Go by Stephanie Gangi (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“With only hours left before cancer kills her, Joanna DeAngelis is dying badly. Instead of focusing on saying goodbye to her daughters and her beloved dog, she spends her last day cyber-stalking her ex-boyfriend and his Internet-famous new girlfriend. When Joanna draws her last breath, mysterious heavenly powers decide that she needs to resolve a few things before moving on to the next world. What happens when ghost-Joanna returns to New York City bent on revenge is terrifying, funny, and, finally, break-out-the-tissues touching. A gorgeous book about love in all its forms: familial, canine, romantic, lost and found again.” —Hillary Nelson, Gibson’s Bookstore, Concord, NH

Additional Buzz: Popsugar names it one of “12 Books to Binge On Before the Girl on the Train Movie” and Bustle list is among “21 Novels By Women To Add to Your TBR Pile This Fall.”

The Girl from Venice, Martin Cruz Smith (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Fans of Gorky Park and other Arkady Renko mysteries are about to be surprised. The Girl From Venice is not a mystery, and it takes place in Venice at the end of WWII, not in countries of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. The pace is still taut, however, and the characters still fascinating. Italy in the last days of the war, with the Germans retreating and everyone hedging their bets, is a complicated place to be, one where every future is uncertain and one very fitting for a master of subtlety like Smith.” —Olga Onal, Bookmiser, Roswell, GA

The German Girl, Armando Lucas Correa (S&S/Atria Books; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“On May 13, 1939, the S.S. St. Louis set sail from Germany to Cuba with many Jewish passengers fleeing Hitler. Despite all best efforts, they were turned away from Cuba, the U.S., and Canada, forcing the ship to return to Europe, where many of the passengers would die in Hitler’s death camps. Correa puts a human face on this shameful episode. Hannah Rosenthal, the daughter of wealthy aristocrats, was 12 when she boarded the St. Louis. Seven decades later, Anna Rosen receives a package from an unknown relative in Cuba that inspires her and her mother to travel to Cuba to learn the truth about their family’s mysterious and tragic past. A masterful debut!” —Deon Stonehouse, Sunriver Books & Music, Sunriver, OR

Additional Buzz: People gives a nod the author, the editor in chief People en Espanyol, making it a pick of the week, saying it “brings the refugee experience alive in the timely must-read.” Sister publication Entertainment Weekly features an interview with the author.

The Spanish-language edition, La niña alemana  will receive attention on Spanish-language TV and, of course, in People en Espanol.

• CNN en Espanol-TV/’Camilo,’ October 17
• Univision-Radio/’Maria Marin,’ October 17
• Telemundo-TV/’Un Nueva Dia,’ October 18
• Univision-TV/’Despierta America,’ October 18
• November issue of People en Espanol

Tie-ins

One tie-in this week, The Making of Outlander: The Series: The Official Guide to Seasons One & Two, Tara Bennett (PRH/Delacorte Press; OverDrive Sample). It is a behind-the-scenes account of what it took to create the series as well as a guide to the two seasons aired thus far.

No air date has been set for season three, but Den of Geek offers a run down of what is known about the upcoming show.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Ever attuned to trends, James Patterson releases his first true crime title next week, complete with two co-authors and a double subtitle, Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him, and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein, with John Connolly and Tim Malloy (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). In picture books, Jon Klassen ends his hat trilogy (I Want My Hat Back, 2011, and This Is Not My Hat, 2012) with a story about two turtle friends who find their relationship threatened when they both covet a white cowboy hat, We Found a Hat (Candlewick). Reviews promise a surprising twist at the end. In YA, a popular trilogy also concludes with Marie Lu’s The Midnight Star (PRH/Putnam Young Readers; Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).

In addition, Vince Flynn releases a new thriller and Laurell K. Hamilton the next title in her vampire series. All these titles, along with other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Oct. 10, 2016.

Media Attention

Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing, Jennifer Weiner (S&S/Atria, S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The description of the newest Oprah pick sounded so much like her own upcoming book that Jennifer Weiner happily prepared to see the magic sticker on the cover of her new book. Her hopes were dashed when the pick actually turned out to be Love Warrior. As Jezebel.com reports, she tweeted her disappointment, and later withdrew it, apologizing for being “petty.” She said she’d been going through a rough time because a film deal recently fell through (she doesn’t name the deal. Perhaps it is the one that was recently reported by Hollywood trades, for her just released middle-grade book, The Littlest Big Foot).

People magazine has covered aspects of the book, including, “Why Author Jennifer Weiner Chose to Reveal Her Father Died from a Drug Overdose” and “Author Jennifer Weiner Reveals Why She Had Weight Loss Surgery.” She is scheduled to appear on CBS This Morning on Monday.

Award Contender

Do Not Say We Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien, (Norton; OverDrive Sample; Recorded Books audio coming in April).

On the Man Booker shortlist as well as the Carnegie Medal longlist, and, just recently announced, the lists for Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award and Giller Prize, the author’s third novel is just being released in the US. There have been no consumer press reviews here yet (in a pre-pub review, Publishers Weekly gave it a star). Earlier this summer, Canada’s The Globe and Mail wrote that the book “cements Madeleine Thien as one of Canada’s most talented novelists” and that the story is a “gorgeous intergenerational saga, stretching as far back at the 1940s and traversing China” told from the perspective of a woman living in present-day Vancouver, who begins the book with the story of her father’s suicide.

Peer Picks

After last week’s overflow of peer recommendations, October 10th brings just four, but they include two October LibraryReads selections: one of the buzziest debuts of the year and the return of a reader-favorite.

The Mothers, Brit Bennett (PRH/Riverhead; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“In a contemporary Black community in California, the story begins with a secret. Nadia is a high school senior, mourning her mother’s recent death, and smitten with the local pastor’s son, Luke. It’s not a serious romance, but it takes a turn when a pregnancy (and subsequent cover-up) happen. The impact sends ripples through the community. The Mothers asks us to contemplate how our decisions shape our lives. The collective voice of the Mothers in the community is a voice unto itself, narrating and guiding the reader through the story.” — Jennifer Ohzourk, St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, MO

Additional Buzz: Bennett was recently named one of The National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35,” selected by Jacqueline Woodson, writing that Britt’s debut is “a stellar novel — moving, thoughtful. Stunning … [she is] the real thing.” It is the #1 Indie Next pick for October, with Jamie Thomas, Women & Children First, Chicago, IL, writing “The Mothers is an honest, modern, and triumphant book.” Essence says “Bennett’s hypnotic writing hooks you from the very beginning and never lets you go in this spine-tingling study of destiny.” BuzzFeed ran an excerpt and Vogue ran a profile. It earned starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly and made the Fall Reading lists of Amazon’s Editors, BuzzFeed, New York Magazine, and WSJ.

Small Great Things, Jodi Picoult (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“A black neonatal nurse is charged with causing the death of a white supremacist’s newborn baby. The story is told from the points of view of the nurse, her attorney, and the baby’s heartbroken father. As always, Picoult’s attention to legal, organizational, and medical details help the tale ring true. What sets this book apart, though, are the uncomfortable points it makes about racism. The novel is both absorbing and thought-provoking, and will surely spark conversations among friends, families and book clubs.” — Laurie Van Court, Douglas County Libraries, Castle Rock, CO

Additional Buzz: It is an October Indie Next selection and a Fall Reading pick by Amazon’s Editors and USA Today. In Style selected it as one of the “5 Books You Need to Read in October 2016” and Canadian librarians picked it as one of their Loan Stars titles. The author is scheduled for an interview tomorrow on NPR’ss Weekend Edition Saturday and many reviews are in the works.

Two additional Indie Next picks also pub this week:

The Clay Girl, Heather Tucker (ECW Press).

“Ari Appleton has been dealt the worst hand ever in terms of parents: her dad is an incestuous pedophile who is both charismatic and cruel, and her mother is an incredibly egocentric addict who bore six girls and has not one iota of love for anyone but herself. Ari moves away from the drug culture and sexual revolution in Toronto in the 1960s to Pleasant Cove, an idyllic place where she is surrounded by love and nurturing. This novel is full of take-your-breath-away writing, and Ari joins the ranks of heroines who take the worst society has to offer and turn it into strength and kindness.” —Linda Sherman-Nurick, Cellar Door Books, Riverside, CA

The Life-Writer, David Constantine (Consortium/Biblioasis; OverDrive Sample).

“Occasionally tragic and always tender, Constantine’s novel is a moving exploration of the ways in which we relate to the people we love. After the death of her husband, Katrin — a literary biographer who has dedicated her career to recording the lives of obscure and largely unsuccessful writers — finds herself drawn to a new project: telling the story of the early life and first love of the man she would later marry. A remarkable story of grief, rediscovery, and reconciliation.” —Sam Kaas, Village Books, Bellingham, WA

The Singing Bones, Shaun Tan (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books).

This new take on Grimms’ fairy tales earns the coveted all-star status this week, getting starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. It is also a Fall Reading pick from Amazon’s Editors.

Tie-ins

Two additional tie-ins for Trolls arrive this week:

Trolls Graphic Novels #1: Hugs & Friends, Dave Scheidt, Tini Howard, and Kathryn Hudson (Macmillan/Papercutz; also in trade paperback).

The Art of Trolls, Jerry Schmitz (PGW and Legato/Cameron + Company).

The movie opens Nov. 4.

Read our earlier coverage here and here and follow the tie-in link below for an extensive list of additional titles.

There is also a new tie-in for Moana:

The Story of Moana: A Tale of Courage and Adventure, Disney Book Group (Hachette/Disney Press).

The newest Disney animated film opens Nov. 23.

Read our earlier coverage here and here and find an extensive list of additional titles by following the tie-in link below.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

From awards contenders to big cookbooks, a raft of picks by librarians and booksellers, and some major tie-ins, it’s one of the heaviest publishing weeks we’ve seen in a while (James Patterson helps by releasing three new titles).

The titles highlighted here, and several more notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, earlyword-new-title-radar-week-of-oct-3-2016

James Patterson has figured out multiple ways to ensure that he continues to publish more books than any other author. In addition to two new titles in his BookShots series arriving on Tuesday, he releases the trade paperback of a title previously only published in the U.K. and Australia. Written with Australian author Kathryn Fox, it is titled Missing (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). Part of the Private series, which features an international detective agency with offices in different cities, it was originally published as Private Sydney.

One of the two BookShots titles coming next week is by Hilary Liftin, whose novel Movie Star got attention last year for its veiled references to the Holmes/Cruise marriage. This one, titled $10,000,000 Marriage Proposal (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Smaple) is about a billionaire who doesn’t want to waste time dating, so he advertises he is willing to pay for the right candidate. The second, French Kiss, Richard DiLallo (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), introduces a new character, Detective Luc Moncrief, a French officer working in the NYPD. As we noted recently, several new titles have been announced in the BookShots series. See our downloadable spreadsheet, BookShots Oct, 2016 thru May, 2017.

Another old reliable, but one who publishes on the relatively leisurely schedule of one title a year, Nicholas Sparks releases his twentieth, Two by Two (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample). Known for his weepy romances, Sparks this time turns to a relationship between a father and daughter. It gets a starred review from Booklist.

Parents, put away Go the Fuck to Sleep. Arriving next week is a follow-up to the book that claimed to guarantee a visit from the Sandman, The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep. The new title features a different animal, perhaps reflecting the political season, The Little Elephant Who Wants to Fall Asleep: A New Way of Getting Children to Sleep by Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin and illustrated by Sydney Hanson (PRH/Crown Books for Young Readers; Listening Library).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 9/5/16.

Cookbook Season Begins

The cookbook season kicks off with titles by two well-known authors. Mark Bittman continues his series with How to Bake Everything (HMH; OverDrive Sample) while a chef generally identified with Italian cuisine turns his attention closer to home, Mario Batali–Big American Cookbook: 250 Favorite Recipes from Across the USA (Hachette/Grand Central; OverDrive Sample).

Seasonal Novels

The upcoming season is heralded with the first winter holiday-themed novels (Patterson, of course, is doing one too, but he’s holding that one off until December). One of the pioneers of the genre, Debbie Macomber, has served as the source for many successful Hallmark Christmas movies, including last year’s Dashing Through the Snow. Her new book is Twelve Days of Christmas (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Elin Hilderbrand, known for her summery Nantucket covers, releases the third in her series featuring a different season on the same island, Winter Storms (Hachette/Little,Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Big YA Release

Replica, Lauren Oliver (HarperCollins; HC Audio; OverDrive Sample)

At just 33, Oliver is #23 on The Hollywood Reporter‘s just-released list of the 25 Most Powerful Authors in Hollywood, based largely on the buzz for the adaptation of her first book, Before I Fall, which arrives in April. This new book approaches a dystopian story in an unusual way, as two novels in one, from two different characters’ points of view (thus the two cover, front and back). In their starred review Kirkus calls it “A reading experience not to be missed — or forgotten” and Booklist predicts, “Teens will line up for this one.”

Award Contenders

Several titles from the longlists for the National Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal arrive next week:

National Book Award, Fiction

News of the World, Paulette Jiles (HC/William Morrow) (also a Peer Pick. see below)

Carnegie Medal, Fiction

The Angel of History, Rabih Alameddine (Atlantic Monthly)

Carnegie Medal, Nonfiction

Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives, Gary Younge (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Nation Books; OverDrive Sample)

National Book Awards, Young Peoples Lit

When the Moon was Ours, Anna-Marie McLemore (Macmillan/A Thomas Dunne Book for St. Martin’s Griffin; OverDrive Sample)

When the Sea Turned to Silver, Grace Lin (Hachette/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample)

People Picks

The Guineveres, Sarah Domet (Macmillan/Flatiron; OverDrive Sample).

A debut, this is one of People‘s three book picks for the week (the others are Bruce Springsteen’s memoir and Maria Semple’s new book, a Peer Pick, below). People writes: “Four girls named Guinevere try to escape the convent of the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration by hiding in a parade float … A wacky, diverting tale.” It received stars from Library Journal and Booklist.

Peer Picks

The #1 LibraryReads pick for October comes out this week, accompanied by five other librarian favorites.

News of the World, Paulette Jiles (HC/William Morrow; Brilliance Audio).

“Readers fortunate enough to meet Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an old ex-soldier who makes a living reading the news to townspeople in 1870s Texas, and Joanna, the Indian captive he is charged with returning to her relatives, will not soon forget them. Everything, from the vividly realized Texas frontier setting to the characters is beautifully crafted, right up to the moving conclusion. Both the Captain and Joanna have very distinctive voices. Wonderful storytelling.” — Beth Mills, New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY

Additional Buzz: It is among the National Book Awards Longlist selections and is an Indie Next pick for October.

Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“I went into Today Will Be Different expecting the mockery of Seattle’s ridiculous idiosyncrasies What I got was different, but just as good. Eleanor is sympathetic and the story revolves around family conflicts and disappointments, as well as Eleanor’s awareness of the inevitability of aging and its effects on herself and marriage. Her relationships with those closest to her are also the ones with the most secrets, and with the potential for the most harm and the most hope. I’d recommend this to readers who love family-centric women’s fiction with a sharp eye for the quirks of marriage and parenting.” — Jessica Werner, The Seattle Public Library, Seattle, WA

Additional Buzz: It is a People pick, “Eleanor Flood knows her ‘white-people problems’ aren’t dire, but they irritate her anyway. Then every corner of life implodes the same day, exposing her secrets to the world — and herself. Readers who devoured Where’d You Go, Bernadette? will love Eleanor’s wry voice and dark humor.” It is also an Indie Next selection and made a number of Fall Reading lists, including those by Amazon’s Editors, BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, and People.

Crosstalk, Connie Willis (PRH/Del Rey; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Crosstalk is the perfect romantic comedy for the digital age. Briddey works for a cell phone provider that is constantly searching for the next great way to help people “connect” – nevermind that she is already inundated by calls, texts, social media, and unannounced visits from her colleagues, friends, and nosy family. When she undergoes a procedure to telepathically sense the emotions of her seemingly perfect boyfriend, things go awry and she ends up connected to the wrong person. A perfect screwball comedy from a master writer!” — Patricia Kline-Millard, Bedford Public Library, Bedford, NH

Additional Buzz: It is among io9‘s Fall Reading suggestions.

The Motion of Puppets, Keith Donohue (Macmillan/Picador; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“A young couple find themselves caught in a web of magic and horror. Kay is an acrobat and goes missing. Her husband cannot believe that she has disappeared and searches the city in vain all the while not guessing that she has been spirited away by a puppet master in the toy shop that fascinated her during their walks. Kay begins life anew as a puppet and soon begins to befriend the other puppets at night when they come to life. Will the evil that has charmed Kay be stronger than her husband’s love? Donohue writes a frightening account reminiscent of Grimm’s fairy tales and it will keep you up reading til dawn.” — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

All the Little Liars: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery, Charlaine Harris (Macmillan/Minotaur Books; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample).

“The narrative of Aurora Teagarden was thought to be over. In a surprising, but welcome return, All the Little Liars picks up right where we left off with Roe. Newly remarried, Roe is dealing with a plethora of issues. With a missing brother and troublesome father in town, Roe is searching for answers. Pregnancy, family problems, and more make for a suspenseful, fast, and comforting read. Harris’ writing shines best when she portrays the minutiae of small-town lives and the inner workings of families, friends, and relationships. I can’t wait for the next book.” — Mei-Ling Thomas, Rochester Hills Public Library, Rochester, MI

Additional Buzz: It is a Fall Reading pick by Amazon’s Editors. Hallmark movies have been based on others in the series: The Julius House: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery (10/16/16), Real Murders: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery (7/26/15), and Aurora Teagarden Mystery: A Bone to Pick (4/5/15).

The Trespasser, Tana French (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Aislinn Murray is beautiful, lives in a picture-perfect cottage, and has a boy she’s crazy about. Antoinette Conway is a tough member of the Dublin Murder Squad who knows no one likes her and says she doesn’t care. When Aislinn is murdered, Conway and her partner Steve Moran take the case and start listening to all the stories about Aislinn. Which ones are true? Was she in love and with whom? Are the stories we tell ourselves and others anywhere near the truth? Great read from Tana French.” — Kathryn Hassert, Chester County Library, Exton, PA

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick and made a number of Fall Reading lists, including those by Amazon’s Editors, BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, and People. The Guardian says “While The Trespasser isn’t quite up to the intense brilliance of The Secret Place, it is still a gnarly, absorbing read, and a finely tuned slice of wintry gloom from one of the best thriller writers we have.”

Additional Indie Next selections hitting shelves this week include:

The Wangs vs. the World, Jade Chang (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Simultaneously tongue-in-cheek and earnest, The Wangs vs. the World is one hell of a ride. Literally. Join the Wang family patriarch, Charles, as he and his family drive across the country from Los Angeles to New York in shame after his cosmetic company is destroyed by a doomed business investment. Homeless, penniless, yet still fiercely proud, Charles sets out to reunite his children and reclaim the ancestral land of the Wangs from the Chinese Communists. A hilarious, moving, and rollicking tale of family, ancestry, and a worn-out Mercedes station wagon, The Wangs vs. the World is not to be missed!” —Michelle Chen, WORD, Brooklyn, NY

Additional Buzz: Considered a hot fall debut, it made many seasonal reading lists including those from BuzzFeed and Entertainment Weekly.

All That Man Is, David Szalay (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“All That Man Is was recently longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and with good reason. The novel’s parade of characters, ranging from teenagers to a man in his twilight years, when taken as a whole, represents an ‘everyman’ in whom readers can easily see pieces of themselves. With prose reminiscent of Amis, Kundera, and Nabokov, Szalay offers a collection of related stories that speak to the mundane qualities of modern life with a sympathetic tone, a reflection of our struggle to move forward in a world increasingly unfamiliar to most of us, but not without hope.” —Tom Beans, Dudley’s Bookshop Café, Bend, OR

Additional Buzz: As mentioned in the annotation, it is a Man Booker Longlist title. It also made the Fall Reading list of New York Magazine.

Cruel Beautiful World, Caroline Leavitt (Workman/Algonquin Books; HighBridge Audio).

“Cruel Beautiful World is a masterful family drama about sisterhood, love, and the dangers of entering the adult world. Lucy is sure that she and her high school teacher are in love. She agrees to run away with William to a rural paradise where they can be together safely until she turns 18. Lucy, however, gets more than she bargained for when her life turns into one of isolation and deprivation. Her sister, Charlotte, never gives up hope that Lucy will return. Their shocking reunion will leave readers riveted to the page and these characters will haunt readers long after the book is finished.” —Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN

Tie-ins

Marking Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut comes this adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1997 novel, American Pastoral. McGregor stars as well, alongside Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Connelly, Rupert Evans and Valorie Curry.

Unfortunately, it is not getting a positive reception. IndieWire‘s critical roundup reports “Critics have described the film as yet another ill-advised Roth adaptation and more proof that the writer’s work doesn’t translate well to the screen, save for James Schamus’ Indignation released earlier this year.”

Variety adds to the negative take, writing “Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut is as flat and strangled as Philip Roth’s novel is furious and expansive.”

The film opens Oct. 28.

There is a tie-in: American Pastoral (MTI): American Trilogy (1), Philip Roth (PRH/Vintage; OverDrive Sample).

A Monster Calls has been pushed back to give
it a wider running lane but a new tie-in comes out this week. As we noted earlier, it is a “Special Collector’s Edition” that, in addition to the original illustrated YA novel, includes new essays by author Patrick Ness, who worked on the screenplay, previously unpublished early sketches by illustrator Jim Kay, and interviews with the director, cast, and crew.

A Monster Calls: Special Collectors’ Edition (Movie Tie-in): Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay (Candlewick).

The movie now opens Dec. 23 in a limited release, followed by a wide release on Jan 6, 2017.

A wave of Moana titles hit shelves this week, lead by Moana: The Deluxe Junior Novelization, RH Disney, illustrated by RH Disney (RH/Disney).

Other offerings include The World of Moana: A Guide to Motunui and Beyond, Bill Scollon, illustrated by RH Disney (RH/Disney) and Moana Read-Along Storybook & CD, Disney Storybook Art Team (Hachette/Disney Press). See our listing of tie-ins for many additional titles.

Another Disney tie-in is Disney Pixar Finding Dory: The Essential Collection (PRH/DK Children). It is timed to coordinate with the DVD, Blu-ray, and digital releases of the film this fall.

There is also a new tie-in for Star Wars, The Amazing Book of Star Wars, Elizabeth Dowsett (PRH/DK Children). The image heavy book, designed to introduce very young readers to the franchise, spans a number of Star Wars films.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Woman of God, James Patterson, Maxine Paetro, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print).

The story as described by Kirkus, that sounds very different for Patterson and Paetro, about the “life of physician-turned-priest” who manages to be accepted by the Catholic Church. Kirkus concludes that it is “A high-concept pitch, a potboiler on the page, and a protagonist to cheer for, but the authors do not quite tie it all together.”

Also, this week, ads are promoting the YA title, Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco, published last week, that feature an arresting quote from Patterson, “The book I wish I had written.” He may not have written it, but he came close. It is published under the “James Patterson Presents” line, from his Hachette kids young readers imprint, Jimmy Patterson.

The Fever Code (Maze Runner, Book Five; Prequel), James Dasher, (RH/Delacorte; Listening Library).

Although it’s Book Five, this is billed as the prequel to the popular YA series. Meanwhile, the future of the Maze Runner series of movies is in doubt, after the injury on set of star, Dylan O’Brien, during the filming of the second movie.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet,Earlyword New Title Radar Week Of Sept 26 2016

Media Attention

Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen, (S&S; S&S Audio; PRH/Vintage Espanol).

Critics Picks

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton (Workman; OverDrive Sample).

We’ve featured this as a holds alert. Entertainment Weekly features it in the Books section this week as “The World’s Coolest Travel Guide.”

Peer Picks

Two Indie Next picks publish this week:

Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto, Tilar J. Mazzeo (S&S/Gallery Books; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“There have been accounts of men who helped Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime escape the clutches of genocidal pogroms and mass slaughter, but this story is about a woman who courageously smuggled thousands of children to safety. Granted unusual access to the Warsaw ghetto as a public health specialist, Irena Sendler used her position to rescue children by various means, sometimes right under the noses of guards. As compelling as any great fiction thriller, Irena’s story will remain with the reader for a long time to come.” —Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA

Additional Buzz: Fall Reading selection by The Wall Street Journal, “New Books Trace the Holocaust’s Legacy.” [subscription may be required].

Mercury, Margot Livesey (HC/Harper; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“This riveting psychological novel delves into the lives of Donald and Vivian, a married couple whose stability is threatened and ultimately undermined when Vivian, whose former life as an aspiring equestrian was cut short, meets Mercury, a magnificent horse with a tragic history. What unfolds may seem like destiny to Vivian, but to Donald, a staid and deliberate ophthalmologist still mourning the death of his beloved father, it tests everything he’s ever known, including his faculty for navigating the world. A truly remarkable study of human nature and the blindspots that hinder us all.” —Mary Cotton, Newtonville Books, Newton, MA

Additional Buzz: The New Yorker calls it “consuming” in this week’s “Briefly Noted Book Reviews.” In LitHub‘s “The Great Booksellers Fall 2016 Preview,” a bookseller calls it “unforgettable,” noting “No one has a better understanding of human nature” than Livesey.

Tie-ins

The film, Birth of a Nation, which is ironically uses the title of D.W. Griffith’s racist movie from a century ago, was hailed as an answer to Hollywood’s lack of diversity. It received a standing ovation before its screening earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Then it was revealed that the director had been been tried for rape while in college and many in Hollywood said they would refuse to see it, dimming Oscar predictions.

But the film did not face controversy at either the Toronto International Film Festival or its L.A. premiere. As a result, Deadline wrote, “Perhaps audiences – and Oscar voters – will decide that it should be judged on its own merits.”

The tie-in publishes this week, The Birth of a Nation: Nat Turner and the Making of a Movement, Nate Parker (S&S/Atria/37 INK; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Based on the story of Nat Turner, the movie was co-written and directed by Nate Parker, who stars in the role of Turner. The film also stars Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Boone Junior, Penelope Ann Miller, and Gabrielle Union. It opens nationwide on 10/7/16.

Poldark’s Cornwall, Winston Graham (IPG/Pan Macmillan). Not a direct tie-in but for those interested in Poldark’s setting. The book offers images of Cornwall’s rugged beauty and picturesque landscape.

Poldark, Season 2 begins airing on PBS Masterpiece on the 25th. It stars Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Heida Reed.

Read our earlier coverage here and here.

Trolls opens on Nov. 4, 2016.

Directed by Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn (both of whom worked on various Shrek movies), the animated movies features the voices of Anna Kendrick, Zooey Deschanel, James Corden, Justin Timberlake, Russell Brand, and Gwen Stefani.

Read our earlier coverage here and link to an extensive list of tie-ins.

Harbor Lights, Sherryl Woods (HC/MIRA; OverDrive Sample) is the next in the Hallmark Channel’s Chesapeake Shores series, which will eventually span a seven episode first season.

The first and second novels in the series, The Inn at Eagle Point and Flowers on Main, have already been released as a tie-ins (see here and here).

Quarry began playing on Cinemax on Sept. 9th. As we wrote earlier (here and here), it is a dark and moody adaptation of Max Allan Collins’s noir 1970’s era series about a hit man.

The eight-episode run stars Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus) as a Marine who comes home to Memphis after the Vietnam War and gets caught in a world of violence and corruption.

The tie-in is Quarry – TV Tie-In Edition, Max Allan Collins (RH/Hard Case Crime; OverDrive Sample).

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Both of the week’s holds leaders are by authors returning to popular series after a pause.

Harlan Coben again features sports agent Myron Bolitar in Home, (PRH/Dutton; Brilliance Audio; RH Large Type; OverDrive Sample) which gets a 2-page ad in this week’s NYT BR. Bolitar’s last outing as the main character was in 2011’s  Live Wire,

After two standalone, Karin Slaughter returns to Will Trent, agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, in Kept Woman, (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperLuxe) which gets a starred review from Booklist. It is also a an Indie Next bookseller pick (see “Peer Picks” below).

Library ordering is low for Atlas Obscura (Workman; OverDrive Sample). So far, holds are also minimal, but in this case we think you should ignore holds. This title is sure to do well from the new book shelves and is likely to pick up media attention. Entertainment Weekly features it on their “Must List” at #3, writing,”In this gorgeous collection, the celebrated Atlas Obscura website is condensed into 480 pages of awe-inspiring destinations. For lovers of history and exploration, the striking color photographs will spark immediate wanderlust.”

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar Week Of Sept 19, 2016.

Media Attention

A Truck Full of Money: One Man’s Quest to Recover from Great Success, Tracy Kidder, (PRH/Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample)

The author writes that this book about the founder of the travel site Kayak.com is “a sequel of sorts” to his 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner, The Soul of the New Machine. Jennifer Senior questions that in her advance review in Monday’s  NYT, but says it is actually more fascinating as a portrayal of a man with bipolar disease. Of course, with Kidder’s reputation, it will receive more media attention, including reviews in the Washington Post and the Sunday New York Times Book Review.

Believing in Magic: My Story of Love, Overcoming Adversity, and Keeping the Faith, Cookie Johnson, Denene Millner (S&S/Howard Books; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample)

It’s been 25 years since Magic Johnson revealed that he is HIV-positive. The British tabloid, the Daily Mail got its hands on this embargoed memoir by his wife and blares, “EXCLUSIVE: Wife reveals the night basketball superstar Magic Johnson locked himself in a room after HIV diagnosis to call his ex-lovers because he always had unprotected sex.”  The author is scheduled to be interviewed next week by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, on The View, and Nightline.

Peer Picks

Four LibraryReads selections arrive this week.

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, Patrick Phillips (W. W. Norton; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Phillips digs into the history of a series of events in his hometown in Georgia. After a series of crimes were blamed on some of the area’s young black men, the citizens of the town saw fit to run off the entire African American population. Phillips researches the crimes and the mob mentality that followed, and shows how certain citizens of Forsyth County continued to intimidate and assault African Americans who wandered across their border for almost eighty years. This is the type of history that is far too important ever to forget.” — Amy Hall, Jefferson County Public Library, Wheat Ridge, CO

Additional Buzz: An early NYT review calls it an “involving” work of “moral force.” Starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. Yesterday it was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air.

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d, Alan Bradley (RH/Delacorte Press; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).    

“Flavia deLuce has returned from Canada to find her father in the hospital and her sisters distant. When she is sent to deliver a message for the vicar’s wife, she steps into another mystery – one she is determined to solve, preferably before Inspector Hewitt can do the same. Flavia is once again a fun, science-loving protagonist. Flavia arrives at a turning point in her life and how she handles what happens next will tell much about the path that she will take into adulthood. This series entry ends on a note that begs for the next story.” — Chris Andersen, Stow Munroe Falls Public Library, Stow, OH

Additional Buzz: The eighth Flavia De Luce mystery is one of the Amazon’s Editors Fall Reading picks.

The Bookshop on the Corner, Jenny Colgan (HC/William Morrow; HC Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Despite losing her job as a librarian who liked to put the right book into a patron’s hands, Nina continues her mission by moving to rural Scotland, purchasing a van, converting it into a bookmobile, and taking to the road. The plot revolves around the romance of the road, the romance of books and reading, and just plain old romance. Another marvelous book by Colgan! A gem of a book!” — Virginia Holsten, Vinton Public Library, Vinton, IA

Additional Buzz: Calling it a “a sweet read for all bibliophiles,” PopSugar picked it as one of “The 25 Books You’re Going to Want to Curl Up With This Fall.”

Daisy in Chains, Sharon Bolton (Macmillan/Minotaur Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Another great book from Bolton! Convicted serial killer Hamish Wolfe has proclaimed his innocence from the beginning and has solicited the help of lawyer Maggie Rose who is known for her ability to get convictions overturned. The story unfolds in alternating chapters from the past to the present and keeps readers on the edge of their seats with a twist you won’t see coming! Highly recommended!” — Karen Zeibak, Wilton Library Association, Wilton, CT

There are five Indie Next picks coming out this week.

The Wonder, Emma Donoghue (Hachette/Little, Brown and Company; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Lib Wright, a protégé of Florence Nightingale and a nursing veteran of the Crimean War, is dispatched from London to a remote Irish village to keep watch on Anna O’Donnell, a young girl who is rumored to have refrained from eating for four months yet continues to thrive. Miracle or hoax? Lib is determined to uncover the truth, but the truth is never simple. In this beautiful, haunting novel, Donoghue weaves a tale of misguided faith and duty, exploited innocence, and redemptive love. What is the secret behind Anna’s mysterious ability to survive? The truth is uncovered as The Wonder propels readers to a shocking conclusion.” — Cathy Langer, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO

Additional Buzz: Starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Fall Reading selections by New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon’s Editors, and USA Today. A new review in The New Yorker called Donoghue “a writer of great vitality and generosity.”

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill, Candice Millard (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT).

“No one was more certain that he was destined for greatness than Winston Churchill and he let nothing deter or discourage him from achieving that goal. The young Churchill saw his path to prominence and power through fearless exploits in the British Army and as a war correspondent. England’s brutal war with the Boer rebels in southern Africa would prove to be his crucible. Millard’s exciting chronicle of Churchill’s experiences there, both daring and humbling, is a fitting tribute to a man whose early dreams of glory proved to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.” — Alden Graves, Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, VT

Additional Buzz: Starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Library Journal. Fall Reading: Amazon’s Editors, WSJ, and USA Today. The Wall Street Journal offers an interview and an excerpt. (subscription may be required). Reviews are upcoming from the Washington Post, the daily New York Times and USA Today.

The Kept Woman, Karin Slaughter (HC/William Morrow; Blackstone Audio).

“The Kept Woman features Georgia detective Will Trent in a compelling mystery involving a superstar sports figure, his wife, and a rape. The athlete had already been cleared of the rape allegations when a dead man is found in a building he is making into a high-end club with other wealthy investors. At the scene, blood is found that doesn’t match that of the dead man, indicating that there is a second victim — a woman — in dire trouble. Another suspenseful tour de force from Slaughter.” —Barbara Kelly, Kelly’s Books To Go, South Portland, ME

Additional Buzz: Fall Reading: Amazon’s Editors. PopSugar suggested it as one of “13 Books to Binge On Before the Girl on the Train Movie,” saying it drips with “psychological thrill” and “is a risqué dive into the fallacies of police procedures.”

Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why, Sady Doyle (PRH/Melville House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“At its best, pop culture criticism forces us to reconsider a familiar product by placing it in a new context and, in doing so, imbuing it with new meaning. Trainwreck is just that. Doyle effectively and entertainingly litigates her case: that Western culture’s fascination with ‘fallen’ female starlets — aka trainwrecks — is simply a modern form of the patriarchal silencing and marginalization of women that has been going for centuries. With sly humor and lively prose, Doyle systematically punches through all the familiar straw-man arguments and convincingly illustrates that the ‘harmless fun’ of Internet clickbait and TMZ gossip are merely modern forms of public shaming. A must-read.” — Matt Nixon, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, TN

Additional Buzz: Fall Reading: Amazon’s Editors. New York Times Book Review, 9/25.

Reputations, Juan Gabriel Vásquez (PRH/Riverhead Books; OverDrive Sample).

“With direct and forceful narrative and a translation as smooth and peaceful as the quiet narrator himself, this book takes the reader on a days-long search for the past and the present in modern day Bogotá. A prominent political cartoonist is shaken when a forgotten uncertainty from the past resurfaces. This psychological study of the concept that what we believe makes us who we are is a masterpiece!” — Nicole Magistro, The Bookworm of Edwards, Edwards, CO

Tie-ins

Only one tie-in this week but it is a big one, the Inferno (Movie Tie-in Edition), Dan Brown (PRH/Anchor; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample; also in Mass Market and Spanish Language; OverDrive Sample).

The movie opens on October 28th. As we pointed out when the trailer ran during the Olympics, causing the book to jump on Amazon, the novel spent five straight weeks at #1 on the NYT hardcover bestseller list and an additional 13 weeks in the top five. It’s the fourth of the Robert Langdon novels but the third film adaptation, after The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. 

Ron Howard again directs, with Tom Hanks starring as Langdon, a Harvard symbologist constantly embroiled in trouble. Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, Rogue One), Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi), Omar Sy (The Intouchables), and Ben Foster (Lone Survivor) also join the cast. David Koepp (Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull, Angels & Demons, Jurassic Park) wrote the screenplay.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The book of the week, at least among reviewers, is Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth (Harper; HarperAudio), arriving on Tuesday. It’s already received coverage, and it’s likely to get more attention in the upcoming week (see Peer Picks, below). It also comes with the news that her breakout title, Bel Canto, is being developed as a movie, starring Julianne Moore. Check your holds, some libraries are showning ratios of ten to one.

The other literary title getting attention (as well as props from GalleyChatters this week) is Nutshell by Ian McEwan (PRH/Nan A. Talese; Recorded Books; RH Large Print), featured on the cover of this week’s NYT BR. McEwan is also getting the Hollywood treatment. His novel On Chesil Beach is in the process of being adapted, starring Satires Ronan.

Showing a larger number of holds than his earlier titles, perhaps because of the A&E series based on his books, is Craig Johnson’s An Obvious Fact (PRH/Viking; Recorded Books; OverDrive Sample). Netflix picked up the Longmire series (after A&E cut it). A fifth season will air later this month,

As we’ve written, Ta-Nehisi Coates followed up his long-running nonfiction best seller with a comic featuring the Black Panther, with illustrations by Brian Stelfreeze. The first four issues are being released in book form as Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1. WSJ interviews him about the series this week.

Jennifer Weiner makes her children’s debut with a middle grade novel, the first in a trilogy, The Littlest Bigfoot (S&S/Aladdin; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). She also publishes her first book of essays in October, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (S&S/Atria; S&S Audio).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, Earlyword New Title Radar Week of Sept. 12, 2016

Media Attention

Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction, Elizabeth Vargas (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print; OverDrive Sample).

The ABC News 20/20 co-anchor writes about her struggles with alcoholism. She will be be interviewed by Diane Sawyer tonight on the 2-hour season premiere of the show.

The book was excerpted in People magazine.

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox, Carol Burnett (PRH/Crown Archetype; RH Audio/BOT; RH Large Print; OverDrive Sample).

Watch for a flood of attention:

USA Today – Fall Books Preview – 9/4
ABC-TV – Live! with Kelly – Interview – 9/13
Bravo TV – Watch What Happens Live – Taped Interview – 9/13
Entertainment Tonight – Interview – 9/13
Today Show – 8AM & 10AM appearances – 9/13
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon – Guest appearance – 9/13
The Rachael Ray Show – Guest appearance – 9/13

Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, Mike Love with James S. Hirsch, (PRH/Blue Rider Press; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Excerpt in People magazine, playing up the Manson connection. There is a VERY early, but none too complimentary, NYT review by Janet Maslin, two weeks ahead of pub. date. Coming in October is a memoir by another Beach Boy, I Am Brian Wilson.

Alan Cumming follows up on his well-received memoir from 2014, Not My Father’s Son, with another life tale, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures, Alan Cumming (Rizzoli; Brilliance Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Expect a media attention, including:

Vanity Fair – 9/1
W Magazine – 9/1
CBS-TV / Late Show With Stephen Colbert – 9/9
ABC-TV / The Chew – 9/13
CBS-TV/Late Late Show with James Corden – 9/20

Man of the World : The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton, Joe Conason (S&S; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) provides an inside look at the second career and world-wide brand of Bill Clinton. The book was the basis for a news story in The Washington Post this week.

Expect more attention to follow, including:

CNN-TV/ Newsroom, September 13
MSNBC-TV/ Morning Joe, September 13
CNBS-TV/ Squawk Box, September 14
WNYC-Radio/ Brian Lehrer Show, September 15

Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Cartel, Dan Slater (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). The publisher offers a sure-bet hook for this true crime tale, “The story of two American teens recruited as killers for a Mexican cartel, and their pursuit by a Mexican-American detective who realizes the War on Drugs is unwinnable.”

There is a media wave for it as well:

New Yorker, 9/12/16
NPR-Radio/ Weekend All Things Considered, September 10
New York Times Book Review, September 11
C-SPAN Book TV/ AfterWords, September 20

Consumer Media Picks

In addition to Ann Patchett’s novel, People picks:

I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, Luvvie Ajayi (Macmillan/Holt Paperback original; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample) — “blogger Ajayi might make you rethink some assumptions about meant and women. At the very least, she’ll make you laugh.”

Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon. Kelley French and Thomas French (Hachette/Little, Brown; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) — “The Frenches, both journalists, eloquently chronicle the terrifying, heroic first six months of their daughter Juniper’s life … tender, fierce and breathtaking.”

Unfortunately, Entertainment Weekly‘s book section  was pre-empted this week by their extensive preview of the fall TV season, but Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth is #6 on their “Must List” for the week.

Peer Picks

Four LibraryReads titles hit shelves this week:

Commonwealth, Ann Patchett (Harper; HarperAudio).

“The Cousins and the Keatings are two California families forever intertwined and permanently shattered by infidelity. Bert Cousins leaves his wife for Beverly Keating, leaving her to raise four children on her own. Beverly, with two children of her own, leaves her husband for Bert. The six children involved are forced to forge a childhood bond based on the combined disappointment in their parents. As adults, they find their families’ stories revealed in a way they couldn’t possibly expect. Patchett has written a family drama that perfectly captures both the absurdity and the heartbreak of domestic life.” — Michael Colford, Boston Public Library, Boston, MA

Additional Buzz: On most, if not all the fall reading previews, it is also the Indie Next #1 pick for September, Entertainment Weekly gives it a solid A review; The Guardian says it is “outstanding;” and Jennifer Senior reviewed it early for the daily NYT, calling it “exquisite.” The author was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered on Thursday. The film adaptation of Patchett’s 2001 breakout novel, Bel Canto, just got its own buzz, with the announcement that Julianne Moore will star in a film adaptation along with Ken Watanabe and Demian Bichir.

The Tea Planter’s Wife, Dinah Jefferies (PRH/Crown; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“When Gwendolyn Hooper comes to Ceylon as a young bride, she has no idea that she’s entering a region on the cusp of political upheaval or that she’s living with a widower and his secret-filled past. The Tea Planter’s Wife has all of the elements that I’m looking for in historical fiction: compelling characters, an evocative setting, a leisurely pace, and a plot that unfolds like the petals of a flower, or, in this case, the tea plant.” — Amy Lapointe, Amherst Town Library, Amherst, NH

The Secrets of Wishtide, Kate Saunders (Macmillan/Bloomsbury USA; OverDrive Sample).

“A charming mystery introduces Laetitia Rodd, a widow who moonlights as a sleuth in 1850s London. She’s tapped to help uncover the mysterious past of a prospective bride, but the more Laetitia digs, the more certain individuals want to keep their secrets buried. And when those secrets turn deadly, Laetitia may be in danger herself. Saunders nails the raucous world of Victorian London, capturing the Dickens-like characters from the lowest of society to the lofty ranks of the wealthy. A fine read for those who love vivid settings and memorable characters.” — Katie Hanson, Madison Public Library, Madison, WI

Darktown, Thomas Mullen (S&S/Atria/37 INK; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“In Atlanta in the late 1940s, the integration of black police officers into the force is proving to be challenging. White civilians don’t respect their authority, and black civilians don’t trust that they can protect them. Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith are men with heavy burdens on their shoulders. Every move they make is examined. When the body of a young black woman is found, they will put everything on the line to gain justice for a woman who turns into a symbol of all that is wrong with their town. Despite its historical setting, so many elements of this tale seem timely, and readers will have much to think about after turning the last page.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, South Huntington, NY

Additional Buzz: Film rights were acquired in a “very competitive” auction ahead of publication. It is also a September Indie Next selection.

There are four additional Indie Next picks out this week:

A Whole Life, Robert Seethaler and translated by Charlotte Collins (Macmillan/FSG; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Andreas Egger lived his whole life with nature as his most trusted companion. When humans, war, and debilitating events threatened him, he quietly climbed mountains, bathed in icy streams, watched the sun streak its intense color into the sky, and then put his head down and forged ahead. He lived eight decades, mostly alone, and faced death and privation with heroism, stoicism, and a depth of character rarely seen in the ‘modern’ 20th century. In this short novel, Seethaler has poetically created a character and a way of looking at the natural world that readers will never forget.” —Gayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ

Additional Buzz: It is on the 2016 shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize. The NYT featured Seethaler last month in an interview for the International Arts section. The Irish Times says the book  is “haunting” and “spare” and compares it to Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers and John Williams’s Stoner.

Little Nothing, Marisa Silver (PRH/Blue Rider Press; OverDrive Sample).

“Silver turns the oral tradition into fine literature with Little Nothing, a masterful work of fairy tale and folklore. Pavla, a dwarf born in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, is a survivor who magically adapts time and again in order to overcome cruelty. Danilo loves her and is obsessed only with protecting her. This is a story of the power of transformation and the gift of finding the love we need, if not the love we seek.” —Maureen Stinger, The Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, VA

Loner, Teddy Wayne (S&S).

“David Federman, a gifted student who is both socially awkward and emotionally immature, is trying to find his place as a Harvard freshman. Enter the beautiful and sophisticated Veronica Wells, and David is hopelessly, obsessively in love for the first time. Suffice it to say this is not a match made in heaven, and it ends badly for everyone when David starts stalking Veronica and violates the school’s honor code — the first steps down a slippery slope towards a violent and tragic ending. David is by turns sympathetic and repellent, and Loner is a complex portrayal of alienation, gender politics, and class at the highest echelons of American academic life.” —Ellen Burns, Books on the Common, Ridgefield, CT

Additional Buzz: It is a New York Magazine Fall Reading pick. The author is scheduled to appear on NPR’s Weekend Edition tomorrow and a review is scheduled for the New York Times Book Review, September 25. People magazine will also review.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World, Peter Wohlleben (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Greystone Books).

“The Hidden Life of Trees reads like a 250-page epiphany. Wohlleben knows trees inside and out, and his revelatory examination of the inner lives of forests provides evidence of what many sensitive nature-lovers long suspected: that trees form friendships, sustain one another, and should be viewed as more than a natural resource. This is the kind of writing that can profoundly affect the way we live on this planet.” —Stephen Sparks, Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA

Additional Buzz: The NYT ran a profile of Wohlleben at the start of the year. It created a stir at the time, causing the book to rise on Amazon nine months before its pub date.

Tie-ins

Trolls. Film opens on Nov. 4, 2016. Directed by Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn (both of whom worked on various Shrek movies). Starring the voices of Anna Kendrick, Zooey Deschanel, James Corden, Justin Timberlake, Russell Brand, and Gwen Stefani.

Tie-in: See listing of tie-ins for the many related books coming out next week.

The summer blockbuster,  Finding Dory is still in theaters, and, with terrible consequences for blue tangs. Digital releases are set for this fall. A new tie-in follows earlier releases.

Tie-in: Big Fish, Little Fish (Disney/Pixar Finding Dory), Christy Webster, illustrated by The Disney Storybook Art Team (RH/Disney).

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV spreadsheet and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The start of fall is not only signaled by Labor Day, but by the increased number of titles by well-known authors coming your way next week, from Margaret Atwood’s first graphic novel, Angel Catbird (Dark Horse Books; OverDrive Sample), to John le Carré’s memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample), which NYT‘s Michiko Kakutani describes as more of “a collection of reminiscences” and continues that the section on his childhood, adapted from a longer New Yorker piece, is “the rawest, most emotional part of this book, and its psychological spine.”

In addition, the next Oprah pick arrives, breathtakingly quickly after her selection of Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. The title has not been announced yet, so speculation has been rife with heavy odds on Glennon Doyle Melton’s Love Warrior (Macmillan/Flatiron; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample), even though it is a memoir and the Oprah pick is classified as fiction (red herring, perhaps?).

Another guess, quickly shot down by the author, is Jonathan Safran Foer’s next novel Here I Am (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample). A literary darling, you can expect to see it reviewed in all the major consumer book reviews, beginning with the L.A. Times, under the less than compelling headline, “With joyless prose about joyless people, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am is kitsch at best.”

It’s also a big week for the James Patterson Bookshops series, with four new titles being released. This is the third group of titles released in the series, and it’s become clear that all BookShots are not equal. Readers prefer those that continue established Patterson series, which this month’s titles do not. Two are in the erotic romance sub-series, BookShots Flames. Patterson is not the co-author on these titles, but supplies an introduction to each. Still, it’s amusing to see the Patterson name emblazoned in script across a typical romance cover.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of 9/5/16

Consumer Media Picks

The media continues to give props to the big literary debut released earlier this week, that we previewed last week, The Nix by Nathan Hill (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Entertainment Weekly gives it an A- in the new issue:

“Nathan Hill’s sad, funny, endlessly inventive debut feels like exactly the kind of novel Septembers are made for: a big fat cinder block of a book brainy enough to wipe away the last SPF-smeared vestiges of a lazy summer but so immediately engaging, too, that it makes the transition feel like a reward, not homework.”

The New York Times kicked off the coverage with a profile of the author, comparing him to John Irving and then, cleverly asking Irving his opinion. He compares Hill to Dickens. Washington Post chief book critic, Ron Charles calls Hill a “major new comic novelist” and describes one of the book’s main characters as “a fire-breathing, anti-immigrant presidential candidate who may remind you of a certain reality-TV star with size anxiety.” NPR calls it, “A Vicious, Sprawling Satire With A Very Human Heart.”

Some libraries are showing heavy holds on modest ordering.

People magazine’s “Book of the Week” is a tribute to the late Nora Ephron by her friend Richard Cohen, She Made Me Laugh (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) calling it, “both complex and moving — and [Cohen’s] depiction of the literary and journalistic circles of the era isn’t stingy on the gossip, either. Nora would be pleased.”

People‘s other two picks this week are also peer picks, Gayle Forman’s first title for adults and the debut, Mischling (see below).

Peer Picks

Two LibraryReads titles appear next week, including the #1 librarian pick for September:

Leave Me, Gayle Forman (Workman/Algonquin Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Aren’t there days when you just want to leave it all behind? After a life threatening event, that’s exactly what Maribeth Klein does. Maribeth, wife, mom of 4-year old twins, and editor of a glossy magazine is told to rest. Sure! The choice she makes is not the one for most, but following Maribeth on this journey is compelling nonetheless. Fast paced narrative and terrific writing make this one hard to put down. Recommended!” — Carol Ann Tack, Merrick Library, Merrick, NY

Additional Buzz: It is also an Indie Next selection for September and is a People pick this week.

The Masked City: An Invisible Library Novel, Genevieve Cogman (PRH/Roc; OverDrive Sample).

“A mysterious new Fae couple is causing Irene and crew major grief in this second installment of the Invisible Library series. After getting a book, Irene and Kai get attacked by a group of werewolves. Irene plans to go to the Library, turn in the book, and find information on the newcomers while Kai will go to Vale’s house. Kai is attacked and taken away. To get to the chaos filled world where Kai is held, Irene has to get help from Silver and fight to not be overrun by chaos and the Fae. I like this series because Irene is a smart, tough, stubborn, and loyal librarian who has survived many crazy, dangerous, and interesting worlds and people.” — Julie Horton, Greenwood County Library, Greenwood, SC

Additional Buzz: The author’s first book was the subject of one of our PRH EarlyReads chats.

Eight Indie Next picks flood shelves this week:

The Risen, Ron Rash (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“The most overused cliché in the book business is ‘page-turner,’ so I will ask indulgence when I declare that The Risen by Ron Rash is a page-turner in the truest sense of the phrase. The Risen explores a young boy’s coming of age, sibling rivalry, a decades-old mystery, and extreme life choices. It is an exciting read for all who appreciate literature at its finest.” —Jake Reiss, Alabama Booksmith, Birmingham, AL

Mischling, Affinity Konar (Hachette/Lee Boudreaux Books; HachetteAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“Sisters Stasha and Pearl are accustomed to the imaginative interior life they share as twins, but in Josef Mengele’s ‘Zoo’ at Auschwitz they must find refuge in that life in order to survive. Readers descend into the violence and despair of the Holocaust as experienced through the eyes of the twins but are protected by an innocence that is also urbane and by a sardonic playfulness that does not shy from horrors but transforms them into fortitude and resilience. Konar has achieved the unlikely — Mischling simultaneously haunts and inspires.” —Kelly Pickerill, Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS

Additional Buzz: A People pick this week, it earned starred reviews from Booklist, LJ, and PW, which calls it “a brutally beautiful novel.”

Razor Girl, Carl Hiaasen (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Welcome back to Southern Florida! In the land of flimflam artists, illegal substances, and scantily clad women, disgraced detective Andrew Yancy is just trying to get his job back. Merry Mansfield, master of the car crash scam, insinuates herself into Yancy’s life with brazen confidence. As it turns out, he needs her more than he could ever anticipate. Reality TV stars, redneck kidnappers, mobsters, and corrupt developers cross paths throughout this novel in hilarious, nonstop action. Hiassen is at the top of his game with quirky characters, rapid-fire banter, and Wodehouse-like plotting.” —Cindy Pauldine, the river’s end bookstore, Oswego, NY

Additional Buzz: Reviewed in The Washington Post as a “raucous new novel.” More reviews are coming, from NPR and the NYT‘s Janet Maslin.

The Fortunes, Peter Ho Davies (HMH; OverDrive Sample).

“At a time of talk about building walls and isolationism, Davies offers a look at American history through the lives of a group of people who have helped to forge this nation — Chinese-Americans. Davies presents characters for whom the American dream is as elusive or as real as it would be to any others. Set in the California Gold Rush, 1930s Hollywood, and the present day, Davies’ tale is artfully told with passion and conviction, and readers will empathize fully with each generation of ‘outsiders.’” —Jessie Martin, Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI

Additional Buzz: On several Fall Reading lists, including New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, the Amazon Editor’s, and BuzzFeed.

Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Amy Stewart (HMH; OverDrive Sample).

“Stewart’s follow-up to Girl Waits With Gun is equally fascinating. Based on the life of Constance Kopp, the first female deputy sheriff in New Jersey, this tale takes readers from rural New Jersey to the mean streets of New York City in 1915. With grit, smarts, and utter determination, Constance tracks a convict who escaped her custody. Despite the astounding restrictions on a woman’s life in the early 20th century, Constance takes every risk to capture her suspect. Complemented by the historical notes that Stewart provides, Lady Cop is both informative and loads of fun.” —Kathy Kirby, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Through Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov’s ordinary encounters and activities within the bounds of the four walls of post-revolutionary Moscow’s Metropol Hotel, where he is under house arrest, Towles deftly guides readers across a century of Russian history, from the Bolshevik uprising to the dawn of the nuclear age under Krushchev. Grandiloquent language and drama reminiscent of Tolstoy gradually give way to action and tradecraft suggestive of le Carré in this lovely and entertaining tale of one man’s determination to maintain his dignity and passion for life, even after being stripped of his title, belongings, and freedom. Reading A Gentleman in Moscow is pure pleasure!” —Becky Dayton, The Vermont Book Shop, Middlebury, VT

Additional Buzz: On the Fall Reading lists of Entertainment Weekly and the Amazon Editor’s. LJ and Kirkus offer starred reviews with Kirkus writing “A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles’ stylish debut, Rules of Civility.”

Pancakes in Paris: Living the American Dream in France, Craig Carlson (Sourcebooks; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Pancakes and Paris make for a winning combination in this charming memoir. Readers will cheer for Carlson as he follows his dream of opening a restaurant in nother country. He faces many challenges, but perseveres until he reaches his goal. Thanks to Carlson it is now possible to get hearty pancakes and other treats at Breakfast in America, the first American-style diner in Paris. This is a perfect read for armchair travelers or for Francophiles planning their next trip to the City of Lights.” —Elizabeth Merritt, Titcomb’s Bookshop, East Sandwich, MA

The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood, Belle Boggs (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“Boggs tackles a variety of challenging topics throughout this cohesive collection of essays. With a knowledgeable, considerate, and honest mind, Boggs is somehow able to transform the clinical and sedate language of infertility treatments into a beautiful song of hope and transformation. The metaphors Boggs finds for her travails sing, and the patient quality of her narration stuns. The candidness of her voice, combined with her ability to find the perfect words to sum up data, studies, statistics, and personal experience, make The Art of Waiting a gift for all readers.” —John Francisconi, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

Additional Buzz: It is a BuzzFeed Fall Reading pick.

Tie-ins

Five new tie-ins appear this week, setting up the fall film season.

Goat: Film opens on 9/23/16. Directed by Andrew Neel, starring Ben Schnetzer, Nick Jonas, and Gus Halper.

Tie-in: Goat (Movie Tie-in Edition): A Memoir, Brad Land (PRH/RH; OverDrive Sample).

The Queen of Katwe: Film opens on 9/23/16 in limited release, nationwide the following week. Directed by Mira Nair, starring Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Madina Nalwanga, and Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine.

Tie-in: The Queen of Katwe: One Girl’s Triumphant Path to Becoming a Chess Champion, Tim Crothers (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio; HighBridge Audio; OverDrive Sample).

See our additional coverage here and here.

Poldark, Season 2: Beginning September 25th on PBS Masterpiece and starring Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Heida Reed.

Tie-in: The World of Poldark, Emma Marriott (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; OverDrive Sample). (NOTE: The series is based on the Poldark novels by Winston Graham.)

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back: Film opens on 10/21/2016. Directed by Edward Zwick, starring Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, and Robert Knepper.

Tie-in: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Movie Tie-in Edition), Lee Child (PRH/Bantam; RH Audio/BOT; also in Mass Market; OverDrive Sample).

See our additional coverage here, here, and here.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk: Film opens on 11/11/16. Directed by Ang Lee, starring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin, and Chris Tucker.

Tie-in: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

See our additional coverage here and here.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Headed for best seller lists are the two peer picks for the week (see below), as well as Danielle Steel’s Rushing Waters, (PRH/Delacorte; Brilliance Audio) which imagines a group of New Yorkers thrown together when a hurricane hits the city.  James Lee Burke continues his multigenerational saga about the Holland family in The Jealous Kind (S&S; S&S Audio).

Also coming is a new title in George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series, High Stakes, (Macmillan/Tor). Martin announced last week that the series will follow Game of Thrones to television,  Says Publishers Weekly of the new title, “This is a wild ride of good, blood-pumping fun that packs a surprisingly emotional punch for a book that looks on the surface like just another superhero adventure.”

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet,EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Aug. 29. 2916.

Consumer Media Picks

People’s “Book of the Week” is a title that was introduced in our EarlyReads program (check out or chat with the author),  The Dollhouse, Fiona Davis (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Published last week and also a LibraryReads pick,, People writes,  “Rich both in twists and period detail, this tale of big-city ambition is impossible to put down.”

Peer Picks

The #1 LibraryReads pick for August, A Great Reckoning, Louise Penny (Macmillan/Minotaur Books; Macmillan Audio ; OverDrive Sample) arrives next week.

“Armand Gamache is back, and it was worth the wait. As the new leader of the Surete academy, Gamche is working to stop corruption at its source and ensure the best start for the cadets. When a copy of an old map is found near the body of a dead professor, Gamache and Beauvoir race against the clock to find the killer before another person dies. A terrific novel that blends Penny’s amazing lyrical prose with characters that resonate long after the book ends. Highly recommended.” — David Singleton, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Charlotte, NC

Additional Buzz: It is also an IndieNext September pick and an all-star, earning nods from all four trade review sources. Kirkus writes it is “A chilling story that’s also filled with hope—a beloved Penny trademark.”

The Nix, Nathan Hill (PRH/Knopf) also pubs this week, a bookseller favorite from the September Indie Next list.

“Hill’s debut is remarkable because it does both the little things and the big things right. It is an intimate novel of identity and loss, the story of a boy abandoned and the man now trying to recover. It also paints a vivid portrait of America and its politics from the 1960s to the present. The Nix overflows with unforgettable characters, but none more clearly rendered than Samuel Andersen-Anderson and his mother, Faye, both bewildered by life and struggling to repair the rift between them. From intimate whispers to American news cycles, this astounding novel of reclamation is guaranteed to sweep readers off their feet.” —Luisa Smith, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

Additional Buzz: One of People magazine’s picks for the week, described  as being “as good as the best Michael Chabon or Jonathan Franzen,” it’s  received wide-spread attention.  Entertainment Weekly calls it the “Wildest Debut” and writes that it is a “sprawling, politically charged full-of-heart tale…” New York Magazine selects it as one of the “8 Books You Need to Read This August.”

Tie-ins

Two tie-ins appear this week:

The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, Liz Jensen (Macmillan/Bloomsbury USA; OverDrive Sample).

Starring Jamie Dornan, Sarah Gadon, Aiden Longworth and Oliver Platt the film explores the sinister happenings surrounding the life of a nine-year-old boy.

The adaptation of this supernatural thriller, a bestseller in print, opens on Sept. 2, 2016.

Flowers on Main, Sherryl Woods (HC/Mira; OverDrive Sample).

The Hallmark Channel’s Chesapeake Shores series rolls on into late September, starring Meghan Ory, Jesse Metcalfe, Treat Williams and Diane Ladd and will eventually span seven episodes in this first season.

The first in the series, The Inn at Eagle Point, has already been released as a tie-in. The second book in the series also gets the tie-in treatment this week.

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

Keep your eye on Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue (Random House; PRH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) in the upcoming week.

This debut novel made news when it won a major deal in advance of the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair (with a different title). At that time, the agent said that Mbue, who is from Cameroon and is now an American citizen living in Manhattan, is “part of the new generation of African writers just being discovered” that includes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun, NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names, Teju Cole Open City, and Dinaw Mengestu How to Read the Air.

The author is profiled in the Wall Street Journal‘s Friday Arts section, with an excerpt from the book. She describes the story, below:

It is People magazine’s “Book of the Week,” described as a “page-turner about race, class and the Wall Street meltdown … Mbue’s writing is warm and captivating, but her message is pointed: American dreams can and do turn into nightmares.”

The Washington Post chief critic, Ron Charles, says that it comes at the right time, as it “illuminates the immigrant experience in America with the tenderhearted wisdom so lacking in our political discourse ” A review is also coming from the NYT Sunday Book Review.

The cover of this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review is devoted to Caleb Carr’s new book, Surrender, New York (Random House; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample), reviewed by fellow crime novelist Michael Connelly. Unlike his most famous novel, The Alienist, which was set in 1896, this one says Connelly, is “an addictive contemporary crime procedural stuffed with observations on the manipulations of science and the particular societal ills of the moment. Call it mystery with multiple messages.” The book’s 600 plus pages require “more dedication (from the reader as well as the writer) than is usual for a crime novel,” but says Connelly, “This is a novel you set time aside for.”

The Washington Post‘s mystery and thriller reviewer, Patrick Anderson, is less willing to set the time aside, saying, Carr’s “descriptive passages can be elegant and informative but they go on endlessly, maddeningly … Carr’s plot is complex, sometimes bewildering, and the reader can become lost amid his epic digressions, no matter how well they read.”

Below are several other titles arriving next week to fanfare from the media as well as booksellers and librarians. For those, and other notable titles arriving next week, with ordering information and alternate formats, check on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Aug. 22, 2016

The Campaign in Books

The first new book about Trump since he became the official Republican candidate, The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston, came from Brooklyn-based indie publisher Melville House earlier this month and is currently at #11 on the NYT Hardcover Nonfiction best seller list, up from #15 last week.

More on Trump and the campaign arrives next week:

Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power, Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The Washington Post assigned a team of their journalists to do a major investigation on the candidate, publishing stories in the paper leading to next week’s release, as well as an excerpt from the book. It is scheduled for heavy media attention from TV and radio:

• CBS Face the Nation, August 21
• NPR All Things Considered, August 22
• MSNBC Morning Joe, August 23
• NPR Fresh Air, August 23
• CNN New Day,August 24
• MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports, August 24

We’re Still Right, They’re Still Wrong: The Democrats’ Case for 2016, James Carville (PRH/Blue Rider; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The media may be obsessed with Trump, but there will surely be time for Democratic strategist Carville, who is adept at memorable sound bites (and has a few things to say about Trump, as the book’s jacket indicates).

In Trump We Trust : E Pluribus Awesome!, Ann Coulter (PRH/Sentinel; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Predictably, the tea party’s poster girl is publishing a pro-Trump book.

Peer Picks

Three LibraryReads titles pub this week, including Fiona Davis’s debut which we featured in a live chat as part of the PRH EarlyReads Program.

The Dollhouse, Fiona Davis (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the story of the women who stayed in the Barbizon Hotel in the 1950’s. A reporter is tipped off about one of the women, who still lives in the building over 60 years later. As she tries to research a murder and a case of switched identities, she starts becoming part of the story. The narration switched between 2016 and 1952 and as I read the novel, I soon got caught up in the next piece of the puzzle. It had history, romance, and a way to view the changing roles of women. Enjoyed it very much!” — Donna Ballard, East Meadow Public Library, East Meadow, NY

It is also a B&N Summer reading selection.

First Star I See Tonight, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio).

“First Star I See Tonight is a satisfying addition to the Chicago Stars series. Cooper Graham has just retired as the quarterback when he meets private investigator Piper. Their relationship starts off with a mutual dislike that quickly turns into one full of sparks. Watching them navigate the waters is fascinating. In the end Cooper lays it all on the line in order to win his biggest game ever…a happily ever after. I highly recommend the book.” — Jennifer Cook, L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library, Eau Claire , WI

Additional Buzz: First Star receives stars from three pre-pub reviewing sources, Booklist, Kirkus and PW

The Couple Next Door, Shari Lapena (PRH/Pamela Dorman Books; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“This book is so full of twists and turns that my head was swiveling. Who took baby Cora? Marco and Anne decide to leave their baby home alone. After all, they share a wall with their neighbors, with whom they are partying. They would take turns checking in on her baby monitor. But when they return to their flat the first thing they find is an open door and no Cora. Who’s to blame? Could it be an unlikely suspect that you won’t see coming? If you like a book that keeps you guessing until the very end you won’t be disappointed.” — Debbie Frizzell, Johnson County Library, Roeland Park, KS

Tie-ins

The tie-in edition for one of the most anticipated moves from page to screen hits shelves this week, complete with a snazzy new cover and the long awaited release of a mass market edition, The Girl on the Train (Movie Tie-In), Paula Hawkins (PRH/Riverhead Books; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample; also in mass market).

The movie follows the dark and twisty tale of a woman who fantasizes about the life of others and sees something she was not supposed to see. As a missing person investigation spins out she becomes intimately involved in the case. It stars Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, and Luke Evans and opens Oct. 7.

Another big adaptation is The Light Between Oceans, starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. The trade paperback tie in edition The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman (S&S/Scribner; HighBridge; OverDrive Sample; mass market) comes out this week.

The movie, about a couple living in a remote lighthouse who rescue an infant and keep her without informing the authorities, opens on Sept. 2, to capitalize on the long  Labor Day Weekend.

The James Patterson machine rolls on with the film adaptation of Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life, James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park (Hachette/jimmy patterson; Hachette Audio/Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample; in pbk as well).

Opening on Oct. 7, it tells the story of a middle schooler who decides to break all the rules and stars Lauren Graham, Thomas Barbusca, and Isabela Moner.

The long anticipated Oliver Stone film on Edward Snowden hits screens on Sept. 16. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scott Eastwood, Shailene Woodley, and Nicolas Cage.

The film drew on several titles, one of them coming out as a tie-in  this week, The Snowden Files (Movie Tie In Edition): The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, Luke Harding (PRH/Vintage; RH Audio; OverDrive Sample).

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

It’s Jacqueline Woodson Week. Review attention has already begun for her anticipated adult novel, Another Brooklyn (HarperCollins/Amisted; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), arriving on Tuesday (CORRECTION: It actually arrived LAST Tuesday, as Elaine points out in the comments, but we are still declaring this her week, as the reviews continue to pour in). It’s People magazine’s “Book of the Week,” described as “a lovely, mournful portrait of a sensitive girl growing up, forging life-sustaining friendships and eventually finding her way.” The L.A. Times calls it “a powerful adult tale of girlhood friendships.” The author was interviewed on NPR’s All Thing Considered this week.

It is also the #1 Indie Next Pick for August:

“National Book Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson has crafted a beautiful, heart-wrenching novel of a young girl’s coming-of-age in Brooklyn. Effortlessly weaving poetic prose, Woodson tells the story of the relationships young women form, their yearning to belong, and the bonds that are created — and broken. Brooklyn itself is a vivid character in this tale — a place at first harsh, but one that becomes home and plays a role in each character’s future. Woodson is one of the most skilled storytellers of our day, and I continue to love and devour each masterpiece she creates!”  —Nicole Yasinsky, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, TN

In addition to the books highlighted here, new titles are coming from holds leaders  Janet Ivanovich, Lisa Scottoline, mystery favorite Michael  Koryta and  an important new name in science fiction, N K, Jemisin,  For those, and several other notable titles arriving next week, with ordering information and alternate formats, check on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Aug. 15, 2016

Media Focus

The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer,  (S&S Gallery Books; S&S Audio)

Schumer’s memoir has received advance attention. The media focus will continue news week:
8/16 ABC Good Morning America
8/17 NPR Morning Edition
8/17 CBS This Morning
8/22 CBS Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Consumer Media Picks

The Last Days of Night, Graham Moore, (Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). 

At #4 on Entertainment Weekly‘s “Must List — The Top 10 Things We Love this Week,” this novel is a thriller about an unlikely subject, Thomas Edison’s lawsuit against George Westinghouse about his light bulb patent. Moore is well-known to the entertainment media as the winner of the Academy Award for the screenplay of The Imitation Game, starring Eddie Redmayne [CORRECTION: the star was Benedict Cumberbatch, as our alert readers point out in the comments]. The director of that movie will begin shooting an adaptation of The Last Days of Night in January, with Redmayne starring reports Deadline.

The Wall Street Journal features the book today, with background on Moore’s research. The author is set to appear on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show next week.

All at Sea, Decca Aitkenhead (PRH/Nan A. Talese).

A People magazine pick, this is a  memoir by a journalist whose partner, Tony, died while saving their 4-year-old son from drowning. People calls it a “heart-wrenching tale of race, unlikely love (Tony was a former criminal) and how grief changes everything. It’s unforgettable.”

Cooking for Picasso, Camille Aubray (PRH/Ballantine; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

Published last week, this book is also a People pick, a novel about a woman who learns that her grandmother did what the book’s title says. She then heads to the South of France to look for the painting the artist supposedly gave her gran. Naturally, she falls in love along the way. People calls it “delicious, atmospheric.”

The Golden Age, Joan London, (Europa Editions, Trade Paperback)

A GalleyChat favorite, this is the lead title for the season from Europa Editions, a publisher that has opened American eyes to some of the best writing from other countries and created a best selling phenomenon here with Elena Ferrante’s novels.

Both pre-pub sources that reviewed The Golden Age gave it a star.  Set in an Australian children’s polio clinic after WW II, “Every character, however minor, comes to life in these pages … London is a virtuoso.” writes Kirkus.

Peer Picks

In addition to the #1 Indie Next pick, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn, covered above, 3 more picks are being published this week, two from the September list and one from the August list.

A House Without Windows, Nadia Hashimi (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“Hashimi sets her layered and suspenseful novel at the crossroads of tradition and modernity in present-day Afghanistan. Her nuanced and well-paced tale tells the story of Zeba, who is accused of murdering her husband. In the Chil Mahtab prison, where Zeba awaits her trial and sentencing, she comes to know a colorful cast of female inmates, many of whom are ordinary women who have been snared in various traps of family honor and have been cast away by their families and by society. This is a compassionately written and moving page-turner.” —Marya Johnston, Out West Books, Grand Junction, CO

The Gentleman, Forrest Leo (PRH/Penguin).

“Fast-paced, funny, and extremely enjoyable, The Gentleman has fantastic elements and intriguing characters tied together with smart dialogue and timing reminiscent of a Baz Luhrman film. Badly behaved Victorian ladies, indolent poets, an exasperated editor, intrepid British adventurers, steampunk inventors, omniscient butlers, a genteel Devil, and a number of cunning plans combine to make this debut novel exciting and amusing.” —Jennifer Richter, Inkwood Books, Haddonfield, NJ

Riverine: A Memoir from Anywhere but Here, Angela Palm (Macmillan/Graywolf Press; OverDrive Sample).

“Haunting and surprising yet immediately relatable, Palm’s striking memoir sinks its roots deep into readers and holds fast. Everything ordinary, Palm reveals, is extraordinary — tragic, profound, amusing, brutal — when examined up close. In reflecting on her own formative years, growing up ‘between points on the map’ in small-town Indiana, Palm paints a measured, unforgettable portrait of the forces that break us free of our origins and those that inevitably call us back.” —Sam Kaas, Village Books, Bellingham, WA

It is also a summer reading pick by the Chicago Tribune: “A memoir of memory, place and burgeoning personhood [recalling] her childhood on the banks of a river in rural Indiana and the next-door boy, once the secret object of her affection, now serving life in prison for a brutal murder.”

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

August is technically the beginning of the fall publishing season, so things quiet down a bit before the onslaught of the big fall titles. Nevertheless, librarians and booksellers still managed to find 10 titles coming out next week to recommend (see Peer Picks, below).

The major book news of next week will still be the books of this week, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine) which just hit the USA Today best seller list at #1. No surprise there, except that, because of the timing of the list, that represents just one day of sales. This week, it’s a People pick (“Spectacular magic and disturbing violence make this a dramatic entry into Harry’s enchanted but troubled world.”)

The Oprah pick, The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio; BOT), caught the review media by surprise since the book was not scheduled for publication until September. Many reviewers are playing catch up. As we reported, it was reviewed on the day of the announcement by Michiko Kakutani in the daily NYT and Ron Charles in the Washington Post. It’s one of the three People picks of the week (but not THE pick, which went to HP). The NYT Book Review‘s take is available online and will be in next week’s issue and is set for serialization by the NYT Magazine. The author is scheduled for interviews on NPR’s Weekend Edition and on Fresh Air on Monday.

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of Aug. 8, 2016.

Advance Attention

Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial, Rabia Chaudry, (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

The first SERIAL podcast was a major phenomenon. It focused on the 20-year old case that put Adnan Syed in prison for the murder of his high school girlfriend. The woman who brought the case to the producers’ attention is Rabia Chaudry, who has worked tirelessly to free Adnan. This is her story. A new trial was recently ordered so the case is in the news once again. People covers the book under the headline, ‘Adnan Syed is Innocent and I Can Prove It: Lawyer Rabia Chaudry.‘ The L.A. Times just published a review.

Another Brooklyn, Jacqueline Woodson (HarperCollins/Amistad; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

One of the titles on the majority of the summer reading lists, this is sure to be heavily reviewed. Based on advance holds, it appears that most libraries have underbought this one. It is also the IndieNext #1 pick for the month (see Peer Picks, below)

The Glorious Heresies, Lisa McInerney’s (PRH/Crown/Archetype; Random House Audio; OverDrive Sample).

Irish author McInerney’s debut won the UK’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Marilyn Stasio, in her most recent New York Times Book Review “Crime” column, says she has a “wonderfully offbeat voice … Not only is McInerney’s prose ripe with foul language and blasphemous ­curses delivered in the impenetrable local idiom, but her style is so flamboyantly colorful it can’t always be contained.”

Media Focus

Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets, Luke Dittrich, (PRH/Random House; RH Audio/BOT).

An excerpt titled, “The Brain That Couldn’t Remember: The untold story of the fight over the legacy of  ‘H.M.’ — the patient who revolutionized the science of memory” is the cover of this week’s New York Times Magazine. The author was interviewed on Wednesday on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show and will be featured on PBS NewsHour next week. Kirkus assesses it as, “Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King in a piercing study of one of psychiatric medicine’s darker hours.”

Consumer Media Picks

In addition to the new Harry Potter and the latest Oprah pick, People also gives the love to a less well-known title, Lucy Foley’s The Invitation (Hachette/Little,Brown; OverDrive Sample) a romance set on a yacht sailing to Cannes in 1953. People recommends that readers “Pop this tale of love, secrets and obsession right into your beach bag.”

Entertainment Weekly focuses on Dark Matter (PRH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), Blake Crouch’s novel that arrived last week to much fanfare. It arrived on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list, but just barely, at #14. EW rates it a B+.

EW‘s head critic, Tina Jordan gives the less anticipated Playing Dead by Elizabeth Greenwood (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample) an A (review not yet online). In this nonfiction title, the author investigates how to fake her own death to solve her student-loan debt and discovers a weird underground that includes a morgue in the Philippines that sells bogus death certificates.

Peer Picks

Ten recommendations from librarians and booksellers hit shelves this week, including four on the August LibraryReads list:

Arrowood, Laura McHugh (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Arden Arrowood returns to the family home, a stately Second Empire mansion, after the death of her father. She is hoping to find some peace and possibly an answer to the decades old mystery of her twin sisters’ kidnapping. Arden, at age 8, was the only witness to their disappearance, but memory is a tricky thing. The spooky old house, the setting on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River Bluffs, the small town atmosphere, a creepy caretaker, and many family secrets make this novel Un-put-down-able! Highly recommended.” — Mary Vernau, Tyler Public Library, Tyler, TX

It is also an August Indie Next pick.

Behind Closed Doors, B. A. Paris (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“On the surface, Jack and Grace have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, and the perfect jobs. What lies beneath the surface is something so sinister yet so believable that it will horrify most readers. What happens behind closed doors and could, or would, you believe it? This is a superb story of psychological abuse that will have your heart racing right up to the end.” — Marika Zemke, Commerce Township Public Library, Commerce Twp, MI

Also selected by booksellers for the August Indie Next list.

The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living, Louise Miller (PRH/Pamela Dorman Books; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Talented chef Olivia Rawlings didn’t make the best decisions in her love life, but it takes an accident with a flambéed dessert to force her into a major life change. She flees to a small town in Vermont and takes a job at a small inn. She soon discovers that even though the town is small, the world she has known is about to get much bigger. Miller’s writing is descriptive enough to imagine Olivia in this setting, smell her pastries baking, and hear the music in the story. Miller has captured the essence of a great character in a setting that could easily feel like home to many readers.” — Jennifer Ohzourk, St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, MO

Miller’s debut made WSJ guide to summer books about food [subscription maybe required] and the August Indie Next list.

The Book That Matters Most, Ann Hood (Norton).

“A recently separated woman seeks solace and purpose in a local book group, while her daughter is dealing with her own life-changing problems that just might be resolved with a little literary assistance. The juxtaposition of the idyllic small town and the harsh reality of the seedier side of Paris, the weight of memory and regret, and the power of human connection, along with the engaging characters all work together to create an enthralling read. Readers will be carried away with the hope that these lovely and damaged characters can find their own happy ending.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, South Huntington, NY

It is an Indie Next selection as well as a B&N summer reading choice.

The #1 Indie Next pick for August comes out this week, Another Brooklyn, Jacqueline Woodson (HC/Amistad; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

“National Book Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson has crafted a beautiful, heart-wrenching novel of a young girl’s coming-of-age in Brooklyn. Effortlessly weaving poetic prose, Woodson tells the story of the relationships young women form, their yearning to belong, and the bonds that are created — and broken. Brooklyn itself is a vivid character in this tale — a place at first harsh, but one that becomes home and plays a role in each character’s future. Woodson is one of the most skilled storytellers of our day, and I continue to love and devour each masterpiece she creates!” —Nicole Yasinsky, The Booksellers at Laurelwood, Memphis, TN

It is on six summer reading lists: B&N, Buzzfeed, Elle, People, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Wall Street Journal [subscription maybe required].

Other Indie Next choices hitting shelves this week are:

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Rosenthal (PRH/Dutton; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“This is the most fun and unique book I have held in my hands in a long time. It is a ‘non-linear memoir’ consisting of a quiz, random thoughts, poetry, essays, text message communications, family photos, and the captured moments of any given day. This textbook is an education in seeing the world through Rosenthal’s magical viewpoint — necessary for all who want to appreciate life’s little gifts.” —Kimberly Daniels, The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, NC

B&N selected it for their summer reading list.

The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko, Scott Stambach (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Macmillan Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko has spent his entire life in a cloistered world, but he possesses a keen intellect and an understanding of humanity that far exceeds the confines of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. Severely physically handicapped due to radiation poisoning, Ivan has never had a friend beyond his caregivers at the hospital — until Polina is admitted. The two teens form a fast and indelible bond that will leave readers in awe of the tenacity of their commitment. Heartbreaking and awe-inspiring.” —Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN

The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman, Mamen Sánchez (S&S/Atria Books; OverDrive Sample).

“Full of quirky characters, passionate lovers, and literary references, this novel takes the reader on a playful romp through both Spain and the human soul. You know how a sprinkle of salt makes chocolate taste sweeter? This book seems all the more timeless for the dashes of modernity throughout — the Spanish detective who references CSI, the wedding band that plays Lady Gaga — all against the intoxicating backdrop of Madrid and Granada. Delightful!” —Nichole McCown, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

I Will Send Rain, Rae Meadows (Macmillan/Henry Holt and Co.; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“As I read I Will Send Rain, I was transported to the West of the 1930s as the Dust Bowl storms began. Annie Bell is struggling to keep her home, body, and family free of the layers of dust that reappear as fast as they are wiped clean. Her husband has constant dreams of rain; her teenage daughter is blinded by love; her young son suffers from dust pneumonia; and now an admirer is forcing Annie to question her own ethics and being. I was moved by the characters, the historical background, the heartache, and the simultaneous longing and complacency that make this a beautiful and powerful story.” —Lori Fazio, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT

Mr. Eternity, Aaron Thier (Macmillan/Bloomsbury USA; OverDrive Sample).

“Clever, smart, and brilliantly comic as it deals with our humanity, our resilient spirit, and the tremendous challenges that demand our cooperative attention, Mr. Eternity is a delight. Who can resist the tale of a 560-year-old American man named Daniel Defoe, who has much wisdom to offer the world and its people. This genre-bending page-turner is a blast to read!” —Ed Conklin, Chaucer’s Books, Santa Barbara, CA

Tie-ins

The biographical film Sully comes out on September 9 with some very big names attached. Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, and Aaron Eckhart all star while Clint Eastwood directs.

It recounts the story of airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger and the day he saved the passengers and crew of flight 155, by safely landing the plane after a bird strike on the Hudson River.

A tie-in comes out this week, Sully: My Search for What Really Matters, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, Jeffrey Zaslow (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample).

The new series Luke Cage, a spin-off of the Jessica Jones show and the next in the comics collaboration between Marvel and Netflix, debuts on Sept. 20. It follows the adventures of Cage, a man with unbreakable skin and super strength, who freelances as a superhero.

A new collected edition is being released this week: Luke Cage: Avenger, Mike Benson et al. (Hachette/Marvel).

With the many forms of distribution now available, timing can get very weird for movie releases. Batman: The Killing Joke, is an animated movie based on the iconic graphic novel (still at #1 on the NYT Hardcover Graphic Books list after 215 weeks), created in direct response to a petition from fans, The studio didn’t seem to have much faith in it, doing a very limited theatrical release (which  was so successful, as one site suggests, that it may bring more DC animation to theaters) as well as streaming it, after a debut at Comic-Con.

Timed to coordinate with its released on DVD and Blu-ray this week, is a special, oversized black and white edition,  Batman Noir: The Killing Joke, Alan Moore, Brian Bolland (PRH/DC Comics; OverDrive Sample).

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

It’s the beginning of a new month, which means several new James Patterson titles are set to arrive. In addition to the hardcover Bullseye (Michael Bennett #9), there is also the paperback original Chase (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), which is also a Michael Bennett story.

So far, there are no signs of over saturation. The hardcover is showing a holds queue as long as the one that awaited the publication of the previous title in the series. The BookShot title, however, shows many fewer holds.

The third Patterson title being released, also in the BookShot series, Let’s Play Make-Believe, (Hachette/BookShots; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample), features new collaborator James O. Born. Although Born is known, as is Patterson, for thrillers, the plot summary for this one indicates that they are exploring new territory:

Both survivors of the divorce wars, Christy and Martin don’t believe in love at first sight and certainly not on a first date. But from the instant they lock eyes, life becomes a sexy, romantic dream come true. That is, until they start playing a strangely intense game of make-believe-a game that’s about to go too far.

Close on Patterson’s heels in holds is Debbie Macomber, with her most recent, Rose Harbor romance, Sweet Tomorrows (PRH/Ballantine Books; RH/BOT audio; Random House Large Print; OverDrive Sample).

The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Aug. 1, 2916

Advance Attention

Presto! : How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales, Penn Jillette (S&S; OverDrive Sample).

Penn and his magician partner Teller appeared  on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon this week (with a brief mention of the book). He is booked for HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher tonight. Next week, he is scheduled for several shows, including ABC’s Good Morning America and ABC’s The View.

March: Book Three, John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions).

It’s good timing for the release of Congressman John Lewis’s third and final graphic novel about the civil rights movement. As we wrote earlier, Lewis was a very happy man when he won an Eisner for the second in the series, March: Book Two. The first in the series, March: Book One is a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.  Lewis attended Comic-Con this year and, as he did last year,  led a commemorative march with children through the convention hall, wearing a coat and backpack similar to those he wore as he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the Selma March in 1965.

The Making of Donald Trump, David Cay Johnston, (Melville House; OverDrive Sample).

The first new book about Trump since he became the official Republican candidate is from Brooklyn-based indie publisher Melville House, coming weeks ahead of the The Washington Post ‘s investigative Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power (S&S; S&S Audio; Aug 23).

Johnston appeared on PBS NewsHour a couple of weeks ago, along with Michael D’Antonio, author of Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, now in paperback as The Truth About Trump (Macmillan/Thomas Dunne).

Consumer Media Picks

Harmony, Carolyn Parkhurst (PRH/Pamela Dorman; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) is the People “Pick of the Week” — “At a breaking point with their autistic daughter Tilly, 13, the Hammond family moves to a remote camp whose charismatic leader posits back-to-nature living as a solution. The propulsive plot … is driven by multiple voices, most compellingly Tilly’s little sister’s.”

The second People pick is This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell (PRH/Knopf; OverDrive Sample; July 19) — “paints a portrait of two eccentric people struggling to transcend life’s messy mistakes” — also recently reviewed on NPR.

The third is You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; OverDrive Sample) — “Taut and raw, this is a mesmerizing story from a master of suspense.” The new issue of the NYT Book Review, expresses admiration for it under the headline, “In Megan Abbott’s New Murder Mystery, a Teenage Gymnast Sharp as a Knife.”

Peer Picks

Two August LibraryReads come out this week:

Die Like an Eagle, Donna Andrews (Macmillan/Minotaur; Dreamscape Media; OverDrive Sample).

“Meg and her family embrace America’s favorite past time. It’s the opening weekend for the Caerphilly is driven by multiple voices.” baseball league and Meg finds a body in the porta-potty. Meg, her friends and family must catch a killer and figure out how to oust the petty league president before everyone’s weekend is ruined. Reading Andrews’ books are like a visit home to your favorite relatives, plus she weaves humor and fun while still penning an enjoyable mystery.” — Karen Emery, Johnson County Public Library, Franklin, IN

Watching Edie, Camilla Way (PRH/NAL; Penguin Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Twisty psychological banter makes this book a thrill ride. Edie was the girl in high school who had it all. Heather was the awkward girl who wanted so badly to be accepted. That was high school and now Edie is a single mom caught in a dead end job. She is about to lose it when Heather comes to her rescue. While Edie loves being able to get her life back, the hold that Heather has on her and the baby is disconcerting. The story jumps back and forth between past and present and you will change your mind about their friendship right up to the last page.” — Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX

Four August Indie Next selections also debut:

Christodora, Tim Murphy (Perseus/PGW/Legato/Grove Press; Blackstone Audio).

“Murphy uses Christodora House, an historic apartment building in the East Village of New York City, as the namesake and backdrop of his compelling debut novel. The story follows the lives of several residents over the course of four decades, expertly detailing the intersections of art and ambition, activism and loss, and the consequences of addiction and the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. I can think of no novel in recent memory in which I felt so drawn to its characters and so emotionally invested in the outcome of their lives.” —Shawn Donley, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR

Carousel Court, Joe McGinniss (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Audio).

“Carousel Court begins with the decline of a marriage as members of the Maguire family find themselves in the suburbs of Los Angeles, struggling to hold onto their last vestiges of power to control what feels like the free fall of their lives. Examining the paradox of both our over-connected and disconnected world, McGinniss’ clear voice is beautifully balanced with the dark desperation he reveals as the all-too-common silent partner of our lives. This is a powerful book that should not be missed!” —Luisa Smith, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA

The Bones of Paradise, Jonis Agee (HC/William Morrow; Harper Audio; OverDrive Sample).

“Agee presents the saga of the Bennett family in the years following the massacre at Wounded Knee. Formed and altered by the unforgiving Nebraska Sandhills, the Bennetts are a rough, conflicted lot, and their story is filled with secrets, lies, betrayals, vengeance, and murder. Agee evokes a lost world and time without sentiment, but with a beautiful subtlety interrupted only by the true horrors of well-researched fact. A must-read for lovers of Western literature, family sagas, and historical fiction.” —Amanda Hurley, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL

Half Wild: Stories, Robin MacArthur (HC/Ecco; OverDrive Sample).

“MacArthur’s debut story collection is set in the hilly backcountry of southern Vermont — a rural landscape of half-abandoned farms and double-wide trailers, but also one of immense natural beauty and wildness. Her characters hew close to this land — even those who have left cannot help but return. These are beautifully drawn portraits of people who, despite poverty and decay, remain vibrantly alive to their world and to the power of memory. I cannot wait to read more from this author!” —Peter Sherman, Wellesley Books, Wellesley, MA

It is also an Indies Introduce title.

Tie-ins

Children’s fantasy dominates the tie-ins this week with two titles forthcoming.

Tim Burton’s adaptation of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is finally nearing its air date, opening on Sept. 30 and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Chris O’Dowd, Ella Purnell, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp and Judi Dench.

A tie-in comes out this week. Several others will follow.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Movie Tie-In Edition), Ransom Riggs (PRH/Quirk Books; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

The Art of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: The Art of the Film, Leah Gallo (PRH/Quirk; Aug. 30, 2016).

Tales of the Peculiar, Ransom Riggs and illustrated by Andrew Davidson (PRH/Dutton Books for Young Readers; RH Audio/Listening Library; Sept. 3, 2016).

USA Today says this contains “10 fairy tales, each illustrated by Andrew Davidson, who also designed the cover. The original stories include tales of wealthy (but very hungry) cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars … and the origins of the first ymbryne (a time manipulator that takes the form of a bird) … The book’s publication is similar to J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard.”

A Monster Calls is based on Patrick Ness’s novel about a story-telling monster and a troubled teen whose mother has cancer. It opens October 21st and stars Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, and Lewis Macdougall.

There is a tie-in: A Monster Calls: A Novel (Movie Tie-in): Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness (Candlewick; OverDrive Sample).

For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.